


I might have fallen

by amoremnant



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Attempt at Humor, Canon Compliant, Eventual Smut, Fluff, M/M, but only like wine and beer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26423287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoremnant/pseuds/amoremnant
Summary: Soobin has been struggling to come up with an idea for Yeonjun's birthday present for quite some time. He feels like giving up, as nothing good is coming to mind, until an opportunity arises. Jimin and Jungkook, their company seniors, are going on a trip, but they're short of two people- that is, until it appears that the two problems can be solved with mutual help.orSoobin and Yeonjun softly falling in love in Europe
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 25
Kudos: 145





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper fanfiction, so I hope I did well ^^ One thing I'd like to mention before you start reading: I wanted to leave the relationship between JM and JK up to the reader to decide, you can see them as a couple or just as friends :)  
> Enjoy!

“Taehyunie, I’m really desperate.”

Soobin takes a deep sigh and rests his head on his hand. His other hand is busy drawing invisible circles on the table; after finishing about ten circles he starts irregularly tapping on the light wood.

Taehyun is doing something on his phone, apparently working, but he just looks bored, as if whatever he was doing wasn’t as important as he claimed it to be. He’s sitting in a comfortable position on a couch, not far away from Soobin, and wonders why his hyung prefers sitting on an ugly uncomfortable wooden chair matching the table. 

He throws a short glance at Soobin, and before the latter manages to look back at him, his eyes fall back at his phone, he opens his mouth to respond.

“Your ideas aren’t all that bad. Honestly I think hyung will like whatever, he’s not really the type of person to be disappointed when he gets something he doesn’t need.”

Soobin’s pout visibly deepens. He thinks about what Taehyun just told him. He’s right, it’s not like Yeonjun will be mad whether Soobin gives him something expensive or something cheap. But that’s not the point, money isn’t the problem here.

The boy has been struggling to come up with a good idea for a birthday present for Yeonjun for quite some time. The closer the day gets, the more nervous he becomes, and the more he dislikes whatever he comes up with. Although there’s still a lot of time left. The problem is occupying Soobin’s mind maybe a bit too much for mid-august. 

“I know, you’re right. But I can’t just give him another hoodie just because I know he wouldn’t mind getting one, you know?” 

He tilts his head to the other side and gives Taehyun a curious look. “What are  _ you _ getting him?”

Taehyun answers without looking at the older one. “I wanted to give him a custom CD with his Song Cry. I’ll ask the BigHit staff if they can do something about it, I haven’t gotten to it yet though.” 

Soobin raises his eyebrows and straightens his back, his hand no longer supporting his head. He whines as a response.

“What?? Wow, that’s such a cool gift. See, that’s exactly something i was looking for, it’s so personal and nice.. Shame I didn’t come up with it first.” 

Taehyun laughs quietly and finally puts down his phone, giving Soobin his full attention. 

“If you want it to be something special, maybe you could bake him a cake or cook a meal or something. It doesn’t have to  _ taste good,  _ it’s the thought that matters.”

He especially emphasizes the taste part, both of them know exactly why. 

“Hmm.. I don’t know. I want to make his birthday better, not ruin it.” 

He scratches his head at the thought of himself cooking something. He clears his head of this image quickly, he ain’t submitting himself to this catastrophe. “What are Beomgyu and Hueningkai giving him?” 

Taehyun shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know, probably something simple.”

The room grows quiet for a second. Soobin, deep in thought, and Taehyun, looking directly at his hyung, anticipating a response. 

“Hm.” Soobin scratches his chin before completely giving up and laying his torso on the table. “Maybe I should just give him something expensive to overcompensate for the fact that I can’t come up with anything nice or interesting.” 

A fond smile grows on Taehyun’s face. He stands up and on his way to leave the room he stops by Soobin to give him a friendly pat on his back. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You still have a month left.” He stops rubbing his back and in an inviting tone his voice grows a bit higher. “I’m gonna get some snacks, do you want some too?” 

Soobin hums  _ no _ and shakes his head still rested on his elbow face down. Taehyun nods, not that it was of any use of Soobin seeing it, and gives him the last pat before leaving the room.

  
  
  
  


The BigHit building corridors aren’t all that long if you’re lost in thoughts walking through them. 

_ God, when will I stop forgetting things? _

Soobin is taking long steps. He’s not in a rush, he’s just annoyed at himself and wants to get this over with. 

_ Soobin, you fool. Start taking better care of your earphones or you’ll lose them one day for good. _

When he arrives at the door of the common room, he doesn't bother to stop and knock although he hears someone’s muffled voice from the inside. Upon storming in he notices a person and a tripod holding an iphone right in front of him, broadcasting every move the two of them make to god knows how many people. 

It’s nothing unusual for people to randomly run into each other in the building, neither is it unusual for someone to do a live in one of the rooms. This should be common knowledge to anyone blessed to be able to walk the corridors of the holy temple  _ The _ Bang PD Himself created.

It  _ is  _ common knowledge to Soobin. He knows this well. He is a smart man.

But sometimes he does less than smart decisions.

The person turns around and gives Soobin a surprised look, though his facial expression is nothing compared to the shock and regret in Soobin’s face. Without any control he turns red and starts apologetically waving his hands.

“AHH I’M SO SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO INTRUDE-”

“Heh.” Jimin laughs and turns back to face the camera. “Everyone, we have a visitor,” he cheerfully announces, “our TXT’s Soobin.” He looks back at him, but this time only turns his head, not his entire body. “Do you want to come say hi to ARMY?” 

Soobin, visibly embarrassed, doesn’t know how to respond. His inability to form a single coherent sentence makes Jimin giggle again. 

“You don’t have to be so shy.” He softly smiles at him. His hands wave in the air signifying an invitation to join him. “Come, you’re already here, so why not? Oh, or were you in a hurry to go somewhere?”

Soobin loosens up -just a bit- and starts slowly walking towards Jimin. The floor is plain- not even a dead spider to make it more interesting, but it feels like he’s walking through a minefield.

Not that he’s not used to having an audience- it’s just this one he isn’t used to.

Honestly it’s hard to tell if it’s the idol from his trainee days or the millions of his fans that is more nerve-wrecking. 

“No, I wasn’t.. I just forgot something here and came to take it.” 

“Ah, I see. It happens to me all the time.” He slides to the right to make room for Soobin. The younger shyly sits and smiles at the camera.

“Hello, I’m Soobin. Nice to meet you.” 

The comments warm his heart when he sees everyone welcoming him. A lot of people seem to know him, some don’t acknowledge his presence at all and just keep spamming- but it wouldn’t be a proper live without that. 

**Soobin so cute**

**BTS TXT BTS TXT**

**Omg Jimin and Soobin i love you both 💜💜**

and they keep coming and coming. Soobin relaxes a bit and he isn’t as nervous to talk to Jimin as a few moments ago. 

“How is work going? Are you working on some songs now?” Jimin’s question is genuine, not just for the show or to keep the conversation going. 

“Ah, yes. We just finished for today.” 

“Is that so? I worked on our album today as well. I wanted to wrap it all up and go eat somewhere out but decided to talk to ARMY for a bit first.”

Soobin hums in response and scratches behind his ear. His shy smile triggers a handful of comments about how cute his dimples are. 

“Have you eaten yet?” 

Soobin looks at Jimin and shakes his head. “No, I was about to get something to eat as well after taking what I forgot here.” 

His responses are short and direct, his neck awkwardly hiding between shoulders indicates that while he may be not totally uncomfortable, he is aware of who he’s talking to.

Jimin’s eyes light up and he smiles ear to ear. “Don’t you want to come with me then? I’m meeting Jungkook after the live, we agreed to go together. It’d be great if you came along.” 

The younger boy is surprised by the sudden question. He presses his lips together and forms another smile paired with a grateful nod of his head. He doesn’t really know what he’s saying. 

“I’d be very happy to! Thank you for the invitation.”

  
  


The two of them have never really spent any time together. Actually, none of TXT ever went out with BTS, as long as Soobin knows. There have been some shared activities, like playing games together, but never properly socializing outside. Both groups are usually busy and there just hasn’t been an opportunity. This may very well be the first time of a proper suggestion to go somewhere together. It made Soobin nervous. 

  
  


They talked about work and several other things before Soobin declared he still needed to go somewhere quickly. He excuses himself and bows before leaving the room, as well as thanks Jimin for the warm atmosphere. Jimin gives him a fond smile.

“I’ll stay here to talk to ARMY for a bit and then we can go, we can meet up in twenty minutes, okay?”

He says that as if he had already turned off his live. Well, a good portion of the international viewers has no idea what he just said anyway.

Soobin returns the smile, bows and thanks again and says goodbye. 

  
  


He didn’t actually need to  _ go anywhere quickly _ . He stops after leaving the room and leans on the wall, sliding past it and ending in a crouch. 

_ Well, now what. _

He didn’t really know why he left, the only excuse he found was to ‘mentally prepare himself’. After realizing that he now has to wait here for almost half an hour silently and pretend he’s not there, he sighs. 

_ Maybe I should text someone to come along,  _ he thinks to himself.  _ And act like they also wanted to get something to eat.  _

As a godsent saviour, Taehyun’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

“What are you doing here? You look like you got locked out of your own room.” 

Soobin’s heart fills with happiness as he looks up at him with hope in his eyes. Taehyun is smirking to himself. He actually looks quite tall, with his good posture paired with how he’s looking down at Soobin like he was some kind of peasant. 

He jumps up and takes both of Taehyun’s hands, pulling them to his chest. The younger looks confused and taken aback with how beaming Soobin looks. His face honestly has never lit up this much after seeing his friend. 

Hopefully he will not refuse to help his desperate friend in need. Taehyun is the kind of person that would jump into a volcano for you, but won’t take a sip of your hot tea to see if it’s drinkable yet.

“Please, Taehyun, you must save me. I’m going out with Jimin and Jungkook sunbaenims. I need you to come along.” 

Taehyun’s eyebrows furrow. “What? Out where? And why are you speaking so quietly?” 

Soobin vigorously shakes his head and hand gestures Taehyun to keep it down as well. The action makes his hair fall over his eyes, which makes Taehyun giggle. “Okay, okay, I get it,” he adds, this time so that only Soobin can hear it. 

The tall boy found his hair a pain in the ass more often than not, but at least it made Taehyun laugh. Now only to get him to agree to his second request.

He fixes his bangs and throws a quick glance at Taehyun before going back to his crouching position leaning against the wall. Taehyun watches him for a short while and proceeds to do the same, crouching right next to him. 

Soobin’s gaze switches from the wall opposite him, the ceiling and Taehyun as he tries his damn best to explain everything without sounding like a complete clown. “Jimin sunbaenim invited me to go get some food with him and I agreed. It’s not like I don’t want to go at all, it’s just that.. I’m worried that it might be a bit awkward.. So I need you to go with me.” 

Taehyun is looking at him intensely as he absorbs every piece of information his hyung is giving him. He probably wonders how that invitation even came about and he still doesn’t have the answer about why they have to keep quiet, but he doesn’t ask further. 

“Okay, sure. I can go with you.”

Feels like the skies cleared suddenly.  _ I knew I could count on you,  _ Soobin thinks, as if he wasn’t doubting him literally five seconds ago.

His face lits up again, a sight that makes Taehyun smile on the inside. 

“Really?” He looks right at him. “Thank you, I owe it to you.”

Taehyun responds with a nod.

A few quiet moments pass. Their legs start to hurt from the uncomfortable crouching. 

Soobin tries out a method of making the time fly faster by singing one of their songs in his head;

not only does it not work, but he can’t even finish the song properly, because he forgot the lyrics.

“So.. why are we just sitting here?”  _ Right. _ Everything about this situation must seem odd to Taehyun. But Soobin will not tell him about how he panicked and flew out of the room. No way he will. 

“We just wait,” he responds. It gives Taehyun no valuable info but he decides to let it go. 

The rest of the wait is spent in silence. Both of the boys jerk with the sudden noise of Jimin opening the door after what felt like eternity. He smiles at them as soon as he notices them.

“Oh, you’re already here? Sorry for the wait. I always find it hard to end the live.” He looks at Taehyun, his long earrings dangle in the sharp movement of his head. 

They give him a stylish look perfectly complimenting his fashion sense.

Taehyun gives him a polite smile. He says hello in the perfect volume, like he was trained for it, and bows. 

“It’s okay, we just came. I ran into Taehyun and found out that he, too, was about to get something to eat, so I thought we could all go together, if that would be okay?” Soobin is looking directly at Jimin. Taehyun gives a half-nod, stopping himself when his head tilts up. He is looking intensely at the back of Soobin’s head, the older bandmate avoiding eye contact with him. He ends up not saying anything, just keeping the polite smile. 

“Of course! I’m happy to hear that you’re coming along, Taehyun.” Jimin doesn’t seem to notice any tension between the two TXT members, or that Soobin is just blatantly lying to save his ass from embarrassment. “I’ll give Jungkook a call, he should be already done with work.” 

Soobin and Taehyun both nod and finally exchange a glance. 

On their way out of the building they don’t meet any other members, so it’ll just be the four of them. 

Jimin is walking a step ahead, his phone by his ear, as he’s explaining to Jungkook that they will have another company. Soobin focuses on Jungkook’s voice coming out of Jimin’s phone, and keeps his head facing forward, dodging the glances Taehyun gives him from time to time. 

He also can’t help but feel like he’s forgetting something.

Well, whatever, that’s the problem of the Future Soobin.

They arrive at the entrance door where Jungkook is already waiting. He smiles when he notices the three and waves his hand. “Hello,” both Taehyun and Soobin say in unison as they bow almost 90°. 

Jungkook has his phone in his hand, the other hand is in the pocket of his black cargo pants matching his plain black T-shirt. Soobin can’t help but admire how cool he looks- he has makeup on, his long hair is styled and his piercings and tattoos are well on show. On top of that he smiles charmingly as he looks each of the three guys into their eyes. 

“I heard that you’re coming with us. I’m happy to hear that, it’s not every day that we get to have a company dinner.”

Jimin gently hits his shoulder. “It’s not a company dinner. We’re going like a group of four friends.” 

Jungkook laughs and nods. “You’re right, you’re right.” 

Soobin keeps switching from looking at the two of them having the short casual conversation. He thinks about how it feels really familial, maybe he was worried the entire time for nothing. Him and Taehyun don’t really say anything, just follow Jungkook and Jimin out and into Jungkook’s car. 

He suddenly realizes what he forgot- he left his headphones in the damn room again.

  
  


The restaurant they’re having dinner in is unfamiliar to Soobin. The same cannot be said about Taehyun, apparently he’s been there once or twice before, as he told him when they got out of the car. 

They walk into a private part of the restaurant. There are four seats available and the plate on the table says ‘reserved’- probably a work of Jungkook at some point before they met up. 

They take a seat and the waiter brings the menu. Soobin grabs one and inspects it out of curiosity. 

The book looks almost as fancy as the interior of the restaurant itself. It’s designed in dark brown, it somehow looks both modern and traditional. 

He looks around at all the decorations surrounding him- framed paintings, little statuettes placed next to the many plants in every direction. Soobin wonders how they can last here- the restaurant is pretty dark. 

The food they order gets delivered relatively fast. The plates are overflowing with all kinds of colours, the vegetables and meat emit a strong scent that indicates that it will taste as good as it looks, if not better. 

Taehyun and Soobin exchange a smirk when they realize how little they ordered compared to the older two, especially Jungkook. It’s difficult to imagine how that much food will fit in his stomach, but he looks confident. All of them jump right into their meals and come to find that it indeed tastes just as good as they expected. 

  
  


The conversation between the four of them flows well, although it’s mostly Jimin and Jungkook talking. They try to make room for Soobin and Taehyun to speak as much as they can, but it doesn’t feel forced, instead Soobin finds himself more and more comfortable with each sentence. 

So does Taehyun apparently, as he has no problem complaining to the two seniors when the talk naturally falls into the topic.

“Soobin hyung has been annoying recently. All he does is worry about unnecessary things that can be easily dealt with,” he says with a sarcastic half smile on his face. 

“What?” Soobin blurts out in surprise. He notices Jimin and Jungkook giving each other a quick look before looking back at him.

“What is it, Soobin? Is there something wrong?” Jimin asks with a tint of worry in his voice. Soobin finishes chewing to respond about how he has no idea what Taehyun is talking about, but the youngest beats him in speed and responds before Soobin manages to open his mouth. 

“It’s still over three weeks until Yeonjun hyung’s birthday, but Soobin hyung keeps worrying about not knowing what to give him as a gift. That is not the problem though, the problem is that he already told me many of his ideas, and they’re all good, but he’s just not content with any of them.” He picks up a cup in front of him but doesn’t drink from it yet. “I keep telling him that all of his ideas are good, but he just won’t listen.” 

He looks at Soobin and finally takes a sip of his tea.

Soobin gives him a bewildered look and continues with checking Jimin and Jungkook’s expressions. The looks in their faces seem to slowly change from worry to amusement. 

“Ah, so that’s the case,” Jimin says with a kind tone. “I get it, sometimes I’m like that too.” 

He takes a bit of rice with his chopsticks and holds it in front of himself. “I’m sure something will come to mind eventually. What ideas have you had so far?”

He puts the rice in his mouth without breaking eye contact with Soobin. 

“Well,” Soobin starts with a pouty tone, “I thought of some clothes, then maybe a watch, or a different kind of accessory, like a necklace or something..” He looks at Jungkook and notices that his gaze keeps switching from his food to Soobin. “But I don’t know, neither of those feels good enough.”

Jimin nods and downs another mouthful of rice. “If you want it to be something original, maybe you could do some DIYing?” 

“I thought of that too, but, I’m not very crafty,” he says and his head fills with disappointment with himself. He starts losing himself in thoughts when suddenly he’s thrown out of it by Jungkook’s enthusiastic hum. 

He chews fast, like he has a limited time of saying what just came to his mind, and nudges Jimin. 

After swallowing, he speaks to Soobin, but he’s looking at Jimin with raised eyebrows. 

“What about taking him on a trip?”

Soobin doesn’t really know how to react, instead he’s just observing Jimin’s reaction. It took him a few seconds, but he now seems to know exactly what Jungkook is referring to. The boy in question looks at Taehyun, who looks as confused as Soobin feels. 

“Ohh, you’re right!” Jimin says as enthusiastically as Jungkook. He moves his gaze from his bandmate to Soobin. “Wouldn’t you like to go on a trip with him?” 

Soobin responds slowly, carefully taking in each piece of information given to him. “A trip with Yeonjun hyung?” 

“Well,” Jimin smiled, “with Yeonjun and the two of us.” 

Soobin didn’t know how to respond to that at all. He looked at Taehyun with hopes that he would help him; his expression was, however, blank. 

“Let me explain,” Jimin started, without letting Soobin respond to the offer just yet. “Me and Jungkook are going on a trip in September. Originally, Taehyungie and Hobi hyung were supposed to come along, but something got in their way.” Soobin could hear the sadness in his voice when he said that.

“But, the tickets were already bought.”

That made Soobin even more surprised and confused than he already was. Just how far are they going?

“Tickets?” he asked in a high pitched voice. “Tickets to where?” 

Jimin snickered and drank a bit of his soda before answering. 

“Europe.” 

Soobin’s eyebrows shooted even higher and he immediately looked at Taehyun. To his surprise, rather than looking shocked, he seemed.. okay. Like it wasn’t a big deal. 

He then examined Jimin and Jungkook’s expressions. He found it hard to believe how every person behind the table just looked casual about it, like Europe wasn’t at the other side of the earth. 

“The timing is perfect. Well, so I assume, from how much time Taehyun said you have left.” It wasn’t surprising or insulting that Jimin didn’t know when Yeonjun’s birthday was. He had no reason to know. “You can give him the ticket as a present. Only if you want, though, I don’t want you to pressure yourself into buying it if you don’t want to. It won’t go to waste, we’ll just have to find someone else to give the tickets to.” 

The atmosphere felt heavy suddenly, not from pressure or anything like that, just from the amount of thinking Soobin had to do. He’s looking into his plate; the food looks inviting but suddenly he doesn’t feel like eating anymore.

Truth is, it’s an amazing idea. Too good to be true actually. But it’s not like he can just pack his things and go to god knows where on a completely different continent. He has a lot of work to do, and he probably won’t be allowed by the company in the first place. On top of that, the idea of going that far with just four people made him feel a bit nervous.

His chain of thoughts gets interrupted by Taehyun’s voice. “I don’t see why not.” 

Soobin looks at him in shock. 

He expected him to be as reasonable as he usually is, but he just shrugs and his expression is calm and collected. 

_ What do you mean ‘why not’, i just thought of plenty of reasons why this wouldn’t work.  _

“You and Yeonjun hyung both have been working hard lately, you deserve some rest. Me and the members can work things out for that short amount of time without the two of you.” He’s serious with what he’s saying and he speaks like he had it all prepared in his head already. “Also, if Jimin and Jungkook sunbaenims are allowed to go, I don’t see why you wouldn’t. After all, we haven’t had any holiday from the company lately.”

Soobin switches from looking at Taehyun to the two older ones opposite him. Jungkook has been quiet ever since he proposed the idea, but his nods he did while Jimin was speaking showed that he was saying exactly what was on his own mind. 

He looks back into his plate and rests his hands in his lap. “I.. will have to think about it. Can I let you know sometime later? It might take a few days, though..” 

Jimin looks at Jungkook and back at Soobin. He shows his understanding in both his eyes and smile. “Of course. Take as much time as you need.” 

“Thank you.” Soobin smiles back but his expression quickly changes to a nervous face of worry of being misunderstood. “B-but I really appreciate the suggestion! It’s not like I’m taking the offer for granted or anything,” he explains clearly. Yet again, he’s met with nothing but fond smiles from both Jimin and Jungkook. 

He exchanges the last glance with Taehyun before the topic is changed and not brought up that day again. 

  
  
  
  


“I won.”

Yeonjun’s proud voice fills up the room the five boys decided to spend their Sunday afternoon in. 

It’s sunny outside, but the wind is strong and none of them feel like having to struggle with keeping their hair in place, so videogames inside it is. 

“No, no, it’s not fair, my controller stopped working!” 

Beomgyu’s desperate attempts to save himself make Yeonjun let out an exaggerated evil laugh.

“I mean it! Right before the finish line! You saw it too, right? Soobin hyung?” 

Soobin is pulled out of his thoughts after hearing his name come from someone’s mouth. 

“Huh? Saw what?” 

Yeonjun’s grin grows even bigger. 

“No, you must have seen it! How it just went side to side out of nowhere!” 

His cry for help develops into laughter, the kind where he’s not even making any noise, his mouth just hangs open. He throws himself back to Taehyun, who was not at all pleased with having to cooperate with Beomgyu on what him and Yeonjun agreed on. 

_ -We need snacks. _

_ -Someone ate the last bag. There’s none left _

_ -Then somebody will have to go buy some _

_ -Alright but not me _

_ -Hey, you can’t just say that _

_ -Okay then, let’s compete and the loser has to go to the grocery store _

And thus, it was decided that if Beomgyu loses in the racing game they were playing on their console, him and Taehyun will get the snacks, and if he wins, Yeonjun and Hueningkai will be the ones having to deal with it. While Kai was content with the agreement, Taehyun wondered how he got pulled into this nonsense of a pact in the first place. 

He pushes Beomgyu away while keeping the reluctant look on his face. “I never agreed to this.”

Yeonjun and Hueningkai high five each other and smugly look at the two other boys sitting on the left side, Taehyun comfortably on the couch and Beomgyu on the floor in front of him. 

“Please, Taehyunie, I’ll fix it and win the next time, just convince them to give me another chance!”

Taehyun sighs and rolls his eyes. “You fool, I have to deal with everything for you.” He looks at Yeonjun and Kai and gives them a soft begging look, one that is as rare as Beomgyu winning against Yeonjun in a racing game. 

“Give him the chance, look at how he’s struggling. Poor guy will have to go to the grocery store alone if he loses.” 

Beomgyu gives him a look of surprise. “What do you mean alone? No, that’s not-”

but he stops himself mid-sentence when Taehyun switches his gaze from Yeonjun to him, still keeping his smiley begging face that is however, above all, overflowing with sarcasm. 

Kai is at first unwilling to give in, but ends up shrugging. “I’m confident in Yeonjun hyung. He’ll win this time too,” he declares. Yeonjun is flattered with the statement and as a result accepts the challenge. 

“Well, there’s nothing for me in it, but let’s say I believe that your controller indeed stopped working.” It’s not like he didn’t believe him, it was just that teasing him felt like so much fun. “Thank Taehyun for that.” 

Beomgyu felt a second wind and confidently straightened his back, eyes looking intensely at the screen. 

Only to end up losing again, making Taehyun internally facepalm. He laughs in defeat and sprawls all over Taehyun’s lap again, slowly sinking to the floor. 

“Taehyunie.. we lost.”

Taehyun raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean  _ we  _ lost? I have nothing to do with this.” 

Another round of smug faces on Yeonjun and Hueningkai. This time Soobin joins with a quiet giggle. 

Yeonjun looks at Soobin, surprised at how quiet he’s been keeping this entire time. The raven haired boy watches him turn around and they keep a short eye contact, until Yeonjun snorts and looks back at the loser of the race. 

“Well then, we have a mission to fulfil,” Beomgyu utters while standing up. Taehyun furrows his eyebrows in response. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Come on, the sooner we go the sooner we’ll be done with it.” He gently pulls on his sweater, trying to make him stand up. 

The rest of the boys watch in amusement. Neither of them want to intervene, seeing the two of them bicker is too much entertainment for them. 

  
  


Beomgyu manages to convince Taehyun to accompany him on his journey to the convenience store. They promise to take less than thirty minutes to come back and leave, making the room suddenly fall quiet. 

Yeonjun breaks the silence when he turns around again to face Soobin.

“I want to race against  _ you,  _ Soobinie. Up for a round?” 

“Huh? Me?” Soobin blinks in surprise. He wants to refuse, but he catches himself already moving towards the direction of the controller Beomgyu left on the floor. 

“Yeah. I haven’t played with you in a long while.” 

Soobin sits in a comfortable position taking Beomgyu’s place on the floor and looks at the screen, then at Yeonjun. The older’s face is challenging. On the contrary, the face behind him, belonging to Kai, looks lost in thought. That doesn’t last long though, as he scoots himself to Soobin’s side and backhugs him. 

“I’m with Soobin hyung in this one.” 

Soobin feels as surprised as Yeonjun looks. 

“What? You traitor, wait until I win you back.” The competitive side of him suddenly seems doubled. 

  
  


The race feels twice as thrilling as the previous ones. Maybe because Soobin is probably trying way too much. His efforts meet a result, the defeated look on Yeonjun’s face and Hueningkai’s high pitched scream followed by an offer for a high five. 

He thinks about all the instances he has lost to Yeonjun- like that one time when he challenged him right after the older woke up, knowing he could barely tell which side of the TV screen was his, but he still won. And how annoying and cocky he got every time, but how Soobin didn’t actually mind at all. 

The winner’s face looks smug as hell, especially after hearing Yeonjun’s fake cry when he throws himself at his younger friend and starts shaking him front to back. 

“NnnooooooOO! Rigged, everything about this game.” 

This feels great.

Soobin can’t help but feel great about himself.

“You shouldn’t play with fire, hyung. You might end up hurt.” 

Yeonjun keeps shaking his head and making crying noises. He stops after hearing Soobin snicker.

Damn, maybe he should’ve just stayed humble.

He pulls his head away from Soobin’s chest and looks at him from below. When their eyes meet, he smirks. “Wait until I beat you in another game. I’ll have my ways.” 

Whatever the heck that means, it doesn't sound good. Soobin can already picture what Yeonjun had in mind but  _ actually let’s not think about that. _

His voice is suddenly playful and confident. Before he moves away from Soobin completely, he tickles his chin with his index finger, making the dark haired boy automatically turn his head to the side, avoiding any kind of attack that might occur next. One can never know with Yeonjun. 

Hueningkai watches all of this from behind Soobin. The leader doesn’t even realize this, until Kai loudly stands up. 

The boy never fails to disappoint with his antics. “No fun while I’m gone, guys. I don’t wanna miss anything, but I gotta pee.” The hyungs look at him in a ‘ _ dude, TMI _ ’ style, but mentally shrug it off, it’s nothing they weren’t used to. 

They wordlessly watch Kai leave the room, and after he closes the door behind himself, they look at each other. 

_ Well, I guess we just wait, _ is what they can read from each other’s expressions. 

Yeonjun slides to his initial position and starts going through a stack of CDs next to him that he left there earlier that day. Soobin watches his every move, he observes how his hand delicately brushes against all the CDs as he’s selecting which one he’d want to use next, he observes how the sole ring he has on his left hand shines and reflects light differently every time Yeonjun’s hand moves a bit. 

But his mind ends up wandering to a completely different place. 

_ Maybe now would be a good time to ask,  _ he thinks.  _ It shouldn’t be a grand announcement, I’d just rather have it casual. _

His mouth is slightly open, like he’s absolutely fascinated by an art piece, not looking at his hyung choosing a videogame to play. 

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t even realise the intense look he was giving him when Yeonjun stood up from the floor and went to the other side of the room to take his switch. 

Yeonjun notices and he can’t help but tease him for it. 

“Am I that captivating?” 

Well, to be fair, he  _ is _ kinda good looking.

Yeonjun’s voice pulls Soobin out of his thoughs with about as same intensity as a slap in his face would. The older seems to find this comical, his smirk showing how proud he is of how he just flattered himself. Not letting Soobin respond, he continues talking, but in a more friendly tone this time. “I progressed in decorating my place in Animal Crossing, wanna see?” 

Soobin takes about two seconds to come back to reality. He doesn’t nod or respond, he just stands up and comes closer to Yeonjun. He sits behind him on a couch and comes closer to the screen once Yeonjun turns it on. 

The boy starts enthusiastically explaining the changes he made, seemingly not minding the close proximity between them. Soobin is pretty sure Yeonjun could feel his hot breath somewhere, by his neck or his ear- or at least hear it. His face was right above Yeonjun’s shoulder. 

He listens for a bit, but gets lost in his dilemma again. 

_ If I asked now, how high is the chance that he’d not take me seriously? Honestly, probably pretty high. Maybe he’ll think I’m making fun of him just to see his reaction. Well, it’s not like I can’t clarify that I’m serious about it. But how the hell do i even ask.. hey Yeonjun, fancy a walk in the streets of London..? But that sounds like I just bought a ticket for the two of us and that would-  _

“Ha!” 

He bumps into Yeonjun under the pressure of Hueningkai’s body landing on his back. “What are you two looking at? I wanna see~” 

The two hyungs look equally shocked by the sudden appearance of Kai, he sneaked in so well neither of them noticed he was in the room. 

Yeonjun turns his head to look at him and then turns back to his switch. “Just a filler activity, as you requested.” 

“Ahh, good good.” Soobin expects him to get off the two of them, but he instead links his hands around his hyungs’ shoulders. It’s an uncomfortable position, likely for all of them, but no one seems to audibly protest. 

They stay like that for way too long, just watching Yeonjun play Animal Crossing. 

Soobin can eventually pull away from Yeonjun once Kai finally stands up to stretch.

He moves to the stack of CDs next to Yeonjun and starts sorting through them. It takes him a while, but he ends up choosing one and putting it inside the console.

He challenges Soobin to a combat, the two of them leave Yeonjun in his own world of Animal Crossing. Neither of them move from their spot until Taehyun and Beomgyu come back twenty minutes later with a plastic bag full of all kinds of snacks. 

  
  


Losing the track of time, they spend the day together until nine in the evening. Hueningkai yawns dramatically, making Beomgyu look at him with one raised eyebrow. 

“What are you yawning for..? You never go to sleep this early,” he questions. Soobin asks himself the same thing.

“I’m not tired,” he says, and doesn’t give any further clarification. Taehyun enters the dialogue. “Well, I think we should pack it up for today anyway.” 

Beomgyu, now completely spread on the couch, stretches and grunts. He unintentionally kicks Taehyun, who is sitting on one side of the couch, thighs under Beomgyu’s feet. Soobin and Hueningkai are somehow sharing what feels like a centimeter square of one armchair. 

Kai stands up and looks around at all the mess they made during the day- a bowl of unpopped popcorn kernels, empty bags of chips and half full bottles everywhere. He stays still for a few seconds, until a sly smile flashes on his face.

“Actually, I  _ am _ tired.”

Without a single drop of remorse he turns on his feet and starts running out of the room. Immediately followed by Beomgyu, the remaining three members are left in the room to exchange a look that simply exhaustedly says  _ kids. _

Even Taehyun, ignoring the fact that he’s younger than Beomgyu. 

He sighs and stands up, ready to clean up the mess, but Soobin gestures to him to stop. 

“It’s okay, Taehyunie. Feel free to leave, we’ll take care of it.” 

He glances at Yeonjun, then at Soobin, and looks like he wants to protest, but in the end just nods and thanks them before he leaves. 

  
  


The two oldest members spend a few moments not moving an inch. The room suddenly feels empty, but at the same time tranquil; the calming sounds of their inhales and exhales are only interrupted by the periodic ticking of the clock.

Yeonjun is the first one to stand up, already taking a plastic bottle by his feet and putting it into an empty bowl. Soobin follows shortly, grabbing each empty bag he lays his eyes on. 

He notices a few crumbs and popcorn kernels on the floor and crouches down, carefully picking up each one by one. While working, he focuses on Yeonjun’s soft humming in the tone of an unknown song, but slowly, for the third time that day, his mind wanders off to a specific problem. 

“Hyung, I have to ask you something.” 

He expects Yeonjun to stop humming and give him his attention, but he doesn’t. Instead, he picks up the last bottle and grabs the bowl temporarily used as a trashcan. 

“Give me a sec, I’ll just throw this out.”

He exits the room and leaves Soobin alone, unknowingly giving him space to overthink everything that comes to his mind.

  
  


He comes back after a moment that felt much longer than it should have. The lighting must have felt too strong for him, as he turned the light off and instead turned on a small lamp in the corner. He notices Soobin picking up all the CDs lying on the floor, and after realizing that there was nothing left to tidy up, he sits down- in front of the couch,  _ again. _

Soobin wonders if there was a specific reason he preferred sitting on the floor. 

The black haired boy put all of the CDs into their cases and placed them in their respective spots in the cabinet next to the TV. He turns around and lays on the couch behind Yeonjun.

The two of them spend another few moments not saying anything. Without turning around and looking at Soobin, the silence is eventually broken by the older. “You wanted to ask something?” 

Soobin suddenly felt like there were scribbles being drawn in his brain. 

He moves from laying on his back to his side, but decides it's the most suitable to just sit like a well-mannered person. 

“Yeonjun hyung,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue. A few seconds pass, but he doesn’t say a word- a sign to Yeonjun that maybe this is a bit more serious than he initially thought. He turns around and looks Soobin in the eyes. 

“Yes?” 

Soobin can’t stand the eye contact and looks at the floor. 

The sudden feeling of intimacy between them is something new. The silence, the clock ticking, the dimly lit room- the only light sources being the small lamp Yeonjun turned on and the home screen of the console. 

Soobin decides not to stretch this weird atmosphere for an amount of time that would be unnecessarily long and just spits everything out.

“I..” he starts, still unsure how to progress in this conversation. 

_ Soobin, just ask. Plain as a day.  _

“Would you like to go on a trip?” 

Yeonjun raises his eyebrows and smiles. “A trip? Sure, where?” 

The younger straightens his back and runs his hand through his hair. He finally looks Yeonjun into his eyes.

“To Europe.” 

..

“Huh?” 

Yeonjun’s expression is filled with confusion. The face he just made is absolute comedy gold to Soobin, but he’s nervous enough to be able to keep the laughter to himself.

“Europe? What do you mean?”

“I mean, a few-days-long trip to England and Scotland. Would you like to go?” 

Yeonjun’s eyebrows still up as high as they can possibly be show Soobin just how completely taken aback his hyung is. It’s the better reaction, he thinks, the other alternative was Yeonjun not taking him seriously and closing the conversation before it could even properly start. 

“How.. what?” he asks. “A few days in England and Scotland.. And you came up with it ‘cause you were bored..?” 

“Of course not,” Soobin responds with pouty lips. “I’m dead serious about everything I’m saying. I’m asking you if you’d like to go on a trip with me.. and also Jimin and Jungkook sunbaenims.” 

It is physically impossible for Yeonjun’s eyebrows to shoot even higher, but it feels like they just did. He processes everything Soobin said and shakes his head. “Soobinie, I will need you to explain everything properly to me. I’m really lost.” 

Soobin looks at the spot next to him and pats it twice. Yeonjun gets the gesture and takes a seat next to him, not breaking their eye contact. 

“I don’t want to burden you with the details,” he starts, “but basically, your birthday is approaching.. and this just feels like a nice gift.” He’s examining Yeonjun’s expression as he’s explaining. “I’d be lying if I said it was my idea. In short, Jimin and Jungkook sunbaenims suggested it, and now I’m suggesting it to you.” 

He scratches behind his ear.

Yeonjun was the one who started the eye contact and he’s the one to break it. His eyes fall down as he’s carefully thinking about each word he just heard and each word he will let out. 

A pout appears this time on his face, as if he was about to ask more questions he still has no answers to, but it disappears as fast as it came. 

Instead of asking further, he just smiles and pulls himself closer to Soobin for a hug. 

Soobin is surprised by the sudden action, but doesn’t take long to reciprocate. Though confused and unsure, he slowly puts his arms around Yeonjun’s back as well. 

He can’t see, but he’s pretty sure Yeonjun’s eyes are closed.

“I’d love to go.”

  
  
  
  


“You’re going WHERE?”

Only a few days pass, but most of the trip has already been arranged. Allowed by the company, Soobin finally felt like he could talk about it to the other boys and not jinx it. It’s not like he wanted to tell the company before his friends- he  _ did _ tell them about what he got Yeonjun as a birthday present, just not where they’re going and how long for. 

Beomgyu’s voice was filled with a bit of jealousy. Not the kind where you’re not happy for the other person though- he made sure to show Soobin that he’s excited with him. 

He just likes to create a bit of drama just for the hell of it.

A big part of Soobin’s initial worry about hurting his friends was still kicking him to the back of his head, even when he noticed that Beomgyu wasn’t really serious about how he acted. He kept reminding himself that it was all just teasing, but the empathetic side of him couldn’t help but feel guilty. 

He places his fist on Beomgyu’s knee and taps it a few times. “You want to come too?”

Beomgyu’s open mouth forms a wide smile. “Of course? What kind of dumb question is that?” 

He turns to look at Hueningkai, who was equally as shocked to hear about the news as Beomgyu was, but he’s not showing nearly as much emotion- barely forming a surprised and supportive smile. 

Kai leans on the mirror and shrugs. 

They’re sitting in the practice room; Yeonjun and Taehyun are somewhere working on other things and the rest of the group is taking a short break. 

Beomgyu takes a look at Soobin’s hand still rested on his knee. 

“What cities are you even visiting?”

Soobin hums and looks at an unidentified spot on the ceiling. “Well, I think London, Edinburgh,.. probably some places near them as well..” 

Beomgyu can’t help but snort at Soobin’s response. “Dude you don’t even know where you’re going.” Hueningkai lets out a quiet giggle. 

“You act like you’d know what I’m talking about if I had a proper answer,” he defends himself and shoots him a facial expression of furrowed brows, though Beomgyu finds it more comical than intimidating. 

“Well, for starters, I’d at least look things up about it.”  _ That’s a valid point, _ Soobin thinks to himself. “It’s a terrible loss that you won’t have me there.” 

The entire time ever since they sat down and the topic was brought up, Hueningkai hasn’t said a word, which is unusual for him. Beomgyu seems to realize it, as he turns to him again and directly asks him about it.

“Kai why aren’t you saying anything?” 

The youngest seems taken by surprise by the sudden attention pointing to him. He inspects both of his friends’ faces looking directly at him.

He responds in a calm tone. “I think that it’s good that it’s just the two of them going. After all, it’s Soobin hyung’s gift to Yeonjunie hyung.  _ They _ should spend and enjoy the time together.” 

Soobin’s heart flutters after hearing the sincere words of their maknae. It was a heartwarming moment while it lasted, that is, until Beomgyu made a gagging sound. 

“Okay, well, you have to take me with you the next time you decide to leave this building during working hours,” he declares. 

Soobin smiles fondly and lets his thoughts wander.

He looks at the floor and starts tapping it with his fingers. “Spain, maybe?” 

Beomgyu apparently already stopped listening, based on his reaction.

“Huh?” 

Not the  _ what do you mean _ kind, the  _ sorry, I didn’t hear ‘cause I wasn’t paying attention. _

“Let’s go to Spain sometimes, okay? The five of us.” 

Beomgyu’s playful mood suddenly switched, he seems.. touched. He doesn’t give any response, or move.

Unlike Hyuka, who smiles wide and releases his well known and well adored scream while throwing hands in the air. 

“Let’s go!” he shouts enthusiastically. “Next summer, how about that?” 

The room gets twice as loud and thrice as cheerful as it was before.

“Definitely,” the leader responds. Suddenly, the season feels so far away. If only it was already summertime.

  
  


But there’s something closer, something just as exciting.

Something he still can’t believe is happening.

  
  


Soobin and Yeonjun are going on a vacation. 


	2. Chapter Two

The plane leaves at ten in the morning, which means Soobin is already up at five.

He looks up the weather forecast as a habit every time he’s flying somewhere- apparently it should be sunny that day, that’s always nice to hear. He already asked Yeonjun- and yes, he can sit at the window. 

His luggage is already packed since yesterday morning, but each look at his suitcase has him remembering random items and throwing them in. There’s a lot of useless shit taking space that could be avoided if he just did something else instead of impatiently sitting on his bed like a sim with no commands. 

He stands up, walks in front of his wardrobe, and sighs. 

No matter how many times he’s already been on the plane, he never knows the dress code. Should he wear jeans? ‘Cause there will be other people. Or should he just wear some sweatpants? Taking a twelve hour long flight would be uncomfortable unless he wears something lazy. 

He has to ask Yeonjun for  _ his  _ fashion choice, and learns that the older will wear some comfortable jeans and will likely change in the restroom at some point while in the air. 

He takes out his black stretch jeans that his mom bought him over a year ago, but he never wore, and pairs it with a black T-shirt with a huge red ‘Levi’s’ logo printed in the front. That he also never wore, exactly for that reason. He chooses a pair of yellow socks with dark blue stripes to make his outfit a bit more lively, though he’s pretty sure no one would notice even if his socks were mismatched and had holes in them. 

Yeonjun looks stylish and fresh even when wearing the most plain clothes he could probably find in his closet. His white T-shirt is tucked in his blue jeans and he has a yellow flannel shirt tied around his waist. Soobin didn’t even know he owned something like that, but then again, he himself also wore clothes that have last seen the light while they were still on a hanger in the clothes shop. 

When he sees him, he checks him out without realizing and a thought of Yeonjun being handsome crosses his mind.

He probably looks this good because he didn’t wake up at such an ungodly hour like his younger tripmate did, Soobin concludes.

  
  


Jimin’s crescent-shaped eyes are apparent even through his round shades. 

The adventurers meet outside the dorms, where their car is already waiting for them. The two oldest of the quartet cheerfully wave in the direction of the TXT members. They notice that it’s not just Soobin and Yeonjun exiting the building, but Beomgyu, Taehyun and Hueningkai are present as well. By the looks on their faces they get the point that the youngsters have not yet been hugged goodbye and wished a safe journey. Jungkook gives them a thumbs up and turns to Jimin, continuing the conversation they had before they saw the other five boys.

As Soobin has already called home and promised his parents to take care, all the remaining time can be fully given to his friends. He doesn’t really know what to say though- he doesn’t want to leave without saying a word, but at the same time, he will cringe at any sort of corny goodbye message he’d let out of his mouth. Not to mention that he’s not even leaving for that long, they’ll be back in no time. 

Beomgyu reads the situation and breaks the awkward silence first. 

“You two, I’ll be expecting to get frequent updates of where you’ve been in the form of HD pictures.” He throws his hands wide open expecting an embrace, but all he gets is a sight of Soobin and Yeonjun exchanging a look.

Both of them expect the other to go in for the hug first. They stand in front of Beomgyu for a moment and unintentionally step towards him at the same time, then stop at the same time too. Fond smiles consequently appear on their faces. They hug Beomgyu jointly. 

After giving their farewells to all the members and being told to bring back a lot of yummy foreign foods by Kai, Soobin and Yeonjun walk towards the two waiting for them by the car. They’re both in an ecstatic mood, the sun and the warm September breeze surely having to do with it as well.

Jimin asks if they’re ready and excited and has a solid laugh when he sees just how  _ ready and excited  _ Soobin really is. He keeps biting his lips in restlessness and playing with the straps of his backpack. Yeonjun seems eager too, but he can control it slightly better and he giggles at Soobin as well. 

At the sight of Jimin and Jungkook’s fond laughs it hits Soobin for the first time just how much different their experiences will be. Him and Yeonjun are going just to enjoy the trip, the other two will probably end up being a lot more exhausted from all the responsibility they have to take. It’d be so much easier for them to be accompanied by their own friends or family members, yet they proposed the idea to two boys that just got out of puberty without giving it a second thought.

Soobin doesn’t see himself (or Yeonjun) as immature or as kids, but if he was in the place of Jimin and Jungkook, he’d definitely feel responsible to keep them safe. 

He doesn’t find the courage to say it out loud, but he thanks them in his head.

  
  


The car ride to the airport feels longer than they wish for. 

Soobin is squished between Yeonjun on his left side and Jungkook on the right, while Jimin is sitting in the passenger seat. The two occasionally exchange a word, but otherwise keep quiet for the most of the ride, like Soobin and Yeonjun do. 

As he has nothing else to focus on, and the tinted car windows don't offer an enjoyable view, Soobin is catching the slight movements of the people surrounding him. 

Jungkook is barely noticeably bobbing his head to the music playing on the radio, Jimin’s fingers are tapping his thigh to the melody. 

Yeonjun’s leg is bouncing up and down in excitement. Soobin is sneakily observing the rhythm, but it doesn’t seem to match the song. His hyung must be lost in his thoughts.

If the car ride felt long, Soobin doesn’t want to imagine what the flight will be like. 

  
  


The plane is designed in a way that makes each row have four seats parted by a corridor in the middle. One would think that the four boys’ tickets are for one row, but no- Jimin and Jungkook are seated behind Soobin and Yeonjun. 

The seats and the little wooden tables belonging with them are of Soobin’s favourite shade of brown, while the rest of the plane is beige; it has no significance but it’s a detail he can appreciate.

At first Soobin and Yeonjun don’t talk much. Each has their mind clouded by their own expectations and imagery of the foreign place. 

It’s not long after the plane takes off that Yeonjun demands Soobin’s attention. 

The younger finds people and the buildings getting progressively smaller and further away fascinating. So much so that he doesn’t notice Yeonjun looking at him and smiling like an idiot. 

He waits for a bit in hopes that Soobin will turn around, but he doesn’t, and Yeonjun is getting impatient. 

He taps his thigh twice and giggles at the reaction he receives- a sharp flinch. 

Comparing the two of them would be like comparing heaven and hell and it’s kinda hilarious. How Yeonjun is all relaxed, his head is rested comfortably while he’s giving Soobin eyes full of emotion that the younger can’t quite describe yet, and the other, looking like a baby first time on a plane. 

Soobin turns his whole body in his hyung’s direction. He now knows that Yeonjun wants to say something, but he for some reason doesn’t for a while, he’s just staring into Soobin’s eyes. 

It makes Soobin nervous in fear that maybe he did something wrong.

The eye contact lasts for a few seconds, until Yeonjun breaks it and looks out of the window for a split second. He then inhales deeply and smiles.

“Soobinie.. thank you. For the opportunity.” His gaze then moves to his hands on his lap. “Let’s have fun these next few days.” 

Soobin smiles back and after hearing Yeonjun’s words his worries disappear. 

Not being able to handle the softness of the situation, he punches Yeonjun in his shoulder.

“Stop being so sentimental.” 

  
  


Only a few hours were needed for Soobin to find out that Yeonjun was not in fact as fresh as he thought. The younger needed some sleep medication to help pass the time and to prepare for the jet lag- Yeonjun fell asleep by himself as, apparently, he did not sleep most of the night and only fell into the dreamland at around four in the morning.

Sleeping on the plane is still quite difficult though. Every other hour someone wakes up and just looks around for a few minutes. At one point, Yeonjun opens his eyes to see Soobin peeping out the window, trying to let in as little light as possible not to wake his friend up. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, getting a shake of Soobin’s head as a response. He also shares that he’s run out of songs in his playlist and he’s sick of listening to them on repeat. Yeonjun offers his own playlist, and though it’s not quite Soobin’s taste, he accepts it. 

He comes to find that it’s a mixture of mostly pop, trap and hip hop. 

  
  
  


The weather in England is remotely different- the air is colder, the sky is bathing in grey clouds that sometimes let the rain pour weakly. The realization that it’s actually September hits Soobin like a train. 

Nonetheless, the excitement he feels when he steps out of the plane is off the charts and he barely even notices the small spots the rain leaves on his jacket he put on an hour ago. 

He can read the happiness on everyone’s faces. Yeonjun stepped out of the plane like a model claiming his new runway. Jimin smiled once he breathed in the wet air. Jungkook looks both like a proud parent and an excited child at the same time. 

  
  


The four take a taxi to their hotel room and can’t help but admire the architecture of all the streets they’re passing. The terraced houses give the city its specific feel- exactly how a person would imagine it. Every now and then they pass a stall with what Soobin assumes is food, his attention also falls on the small bakeries here and there. He can’t wait to visit one. 

The hotel they arrive at is huge and looks glamorous and very luxurious- though it’s definitely not the best one in town, Jimin mentioned that he’s not a stickler for expensive hotels, that all he needs is good privacy. 

Soobin and Yeonjun will be sharing one room, just like Jimin and Jungkook. They’re both on the fifth floor, though pretty far away from each other. 

Upon entering the door to their hotel room, Soobin and Yeonjun both notice the same thing first.

Doesn’t take a genius to tell that it was, of course, a single bed. 

They exchange a look before even stepping in.

Soobin knew that they’d be sharing one room, that’s what Jimin told him when they were discussing the details of the trip; he didn’t, however, mention that they’d be sharing one bed as well. Well, it’s not like it’s a big deal, they’ve already slept in one bed before. And with the other members too- in fact, all at the same time. 

Soobin watches the two BTS members walk to their own room at the end of the corridor (and wonders if they also share a bed, and if it means that Taehyung and Hoseok were also supposed to share. But that thought should not be bothering him.) He follows Yeonjun in and closes the door behind them. 

Right after Yeonjun toes off his shoes, he throws himself on the bed and spreads his hands wide open. He’s looking up at the ceiling for a bit, then he sits up and looks at Soobin.

“So, which side are you claiming?” 

Soobin looks at him and shrugs. He’s looking around the room and on his way to check out the bathroom.

“I don’t really care to be honest.” He raises his volume after entering the bathroom. “I don’t know, on the right?” 

Yeonjun looks in his direction, even though he can’t see him. “No, I think the left side suits you better.” He hears Soobin’s muffled laugh. 

After being done with exploring the bathroom and the rest of the room, Soobin sits on the bed (the left side) and feels the beddings. They’re soft and the material is of high quality. It’ll be a pleasure to sleep in this hotel. 

Yeonjun moves to the right side -by rolling over his back like the extra that he is- to make place for the dark haired boy and lies down again. So does Soobin and he doesn't bother to change clothes, just closes his eyes in tiredness. Although it’s afternoon in England, in Korea the midnight is nearing and so is Soobin’s usual time for bed. The discontinuous sleeping on the plane helped, but can’t be considered a proper compensation. 

He sees Yeonjun taking off his jeans to change to the sweatpants he took out of his suitcase as the last thing before he gives in to the fatigue. 

  
  


The alarm wakes them both up three hours later. 

Soobin turns it off and rolls to the other side; he ends up facing Yeonjun’s tired gaze. He notices a few strands of his hair facing every direction and fights the urge to fix them. Instead, they just keep a prolonged eye contact like the lazy young adults they are. Not lazy as in  _ not hardworking,  _ just  _ really reluctant to leave this comfy bed. _

Yeonjun is the first to leave the bed. Soobin watches him enter the bathroom, and after he leaves his sight, he takes his phone that he left on the bedside table. He opens the group chat that he shares with the other TXT members to let them know that they landed and that they’re about to visit an amusement park that Jungkook chose. 

Almost immediately he gets a notification for a message back.

  
  


**Taehyun**

Glad you landed safely. Enjoy the trip

**Soobin**

What are you doing up so late go to bed

**Taehyun**

I’m going soon

  
  


Soobin watches the three dots by Taehyun’s name, but they disappear after a while with no new message. Taehyun probably wanted to ask something out of curiosity or politeness, maybe about the weather or if they’ve already had some nice meal, but decided to go to sleep instead and leave it for later. 

At the thought of having a meal Soobin realizes how hungry he is.

He texts Jimin and Jungkook in another group chat that they made a day prior, and the name of which was a proud creation of Jimin.

  
  


**🍀YJ’s birthday gift🍀**

**Soobin**

Hello

I wanted to ask if we’re planning to go eat somewhere before going to the theme park

  
  


Jimin’s response comes about four minutes later.

  
  


**Jiminie**

We were too hungry so we just ordered from the hotel ^o^

You can order too it’ll be delivered to your room

Or we can go somewhere if you want

**Soobin**

No it's okay! We’ll order something too

Thank you

  
  


He locks his phone and throws it to the other side of the bed. He just now notices the noise coming from the bathroom- Yeonjun is taking a shower. Soobin figures that if he’s gonna order, this would be a good opportunity. 

He finds a list of the foods on a small table next to the entrance door. After taking it he lies on the bed and starts going through the menu.

As expected, nothing’s in korean. 

He understands most of what he reads, but there’s always an ingredient that he’s not too sure of. After reading the list back and forth, he decides on the one thing he’s sure he gets the most- pancakes with chocolate and some whipped cream on top. Hopefully Yeonjun will like Soobin’s choice of their first foreign meal. 

It takes approximately ten minutes for it to be delivered to their room. Soobin then spends another minute contemplating whether he should dive in or wait for Yeonjun, ‘cause that diva is still in the bathroom, and the water is still running. 

He can’t wait any longer though, those pancakes look really inviting.

  
  


After a while the content sounds of Soobin’s chewing suddenly get interrupted by the opening of the bathroom door and Yeonjun’s voice.

“Don’t look. I didn’t bring my clothes,” he says. 

Soobin stops chewing in surprise of the piece of information. 

He covers his eyes with his hand to prevent himself from seeing Yeonjun, but he also prevents Yeonjun from seeing how a little bit of blush creeped on his face. 

“Oh my god, hyung. Are you naked?” 

“No!” The older blurts out. His voice clearly indicates how that question had him perplexed. “I have a towel around my waist.” 

He walks over to his suitcase that is so unfortunate to lay right in front of Soobin. Unintentionally, the boy covering his eyes catches a glimpse of Yeonjun’s bare back, but pretends like he didn’t and closes his eyes tighter. 

Yeonjun takes all he needs and goes back to the bathroom. 

“You got us some food?” he shouts through the closed door. Soobin nods in affirmation (but realizes Yeonjun can’t see him) and shouts back.

“You saw? I ordered pancakes. They’re really tasty.” 

Soobin contently chews his food and praises himself for making a good choice with it. 

After a while, he hears the door open again and turns his head instinctively. 

Yeonjun walks out, already dressed for the evening program. 

He’s wearing jeans, a beige tucked in T-shirt and a dark brown cardigan. His accessories include a black belt and a few rings on both of his hands, and to top the entire outfit off, he put on makeup and eyeshadow in a subtle brown. 

He looks as stylish as ever. 

“Wow,” Soobin uttered. “You really made use of the time you took in the bathroom.” Yeonjun seemed impressed by how Soobin basically made fun of him and covered it with a compliment. He snorts and sits down on the bed next to Soobin. 

He looks at the meal in front of him like he hasn’t eaten in days. 

“You ordered that yourself? Like, you called on the phone? And ordered?” he asks teasingly. “In english?”

He takes a fork lying next to Soobin and puts a huge piece of one of the pancakes into his mouth.

“Of course I did, what are you getting at?” Soobin asks, but he knew exactly what Yeonjun was getting at. 

He wasn’t the most confident when it came to speaking english, although he did well every time he gathered enough courage to do so.

“Mm!” Yeonjun hummed in delight of tasting the pancake. “It’s really good.”

Soobin gives him a look that doesn’t really show any specific emotion, but Yeonjun knows him well enough to recognize it.

He smiles and pats his shoulder. “You did a good job.” 

Such a simple sentence, but it’s a big confidence booster and mood lifter.

  
  


Soobin finishes his meal and walks to his suitcase. He still hasn’t put on proper clothes or thought about what he should wear. He starts looking through his packed clothes only to come to a realization that there isn’t much versatility to his wardrobe. All he wears are mostly sweaters and cardigans and all his jeans look the same, except some are blue and some black. 

Yeonjun’s watching him go through his suitcase contents, but he doesn’t comment. 

He ends up picking a blue fluffy sweater, dark blue jeans and a khaki jacket. 

No accessories whatsoever, although he has some packed. 

He goes into the bathroom, wondering if he should take a shower, but decides on leaving in for when they come back. 

That doesn’t mean he didn’t spend a long time in the bathroom though. Not really knowing why, he took his makeup bag with him, although he doesn’t necessarily enjoy wearing it, but he puts it on anyway. 

After spending way too long just staring at his face and dabbing it with his makeup sponge, he checks himself out and leaves the bathroom. 

Yeonjun is still sitting on the bed, although his meal is finished and he has his phone in his hand. 

He looks at Soobin and gives him a look of approval. No words needed, but the younger feels like his mission was accomplished.

Even though, he wasn’t dressing up for Yeonjun of course. 

“I texted sunbaenims. We’ll be going soon.” 

Soobin nods and goes to his suitcase again to take a small backpack out of it. 

“By the way,” the older starts, prompting Soobin to look at him.

“..nothing. Nevermind.” 

  
  
  


The amusement park is apparently open until midnight, so that should give the quartet enough time to enjoy it as the first activity they do after getting their beauty afternoon sleep in their hotel. 

It’s crowded enough to show that it’s still the season, but not enough to make the boys uncomfortable. It’s also good that no one has yet recognized them, but the fact that they’re wearing facemasks and that they just arrived are definitely a big factor. 

They walk through the gates and the first thing they lay their eyes upon is a huge roller coaster in what seems like the exact middle of the park, according to the map Yeonjun is holding. 

“Oh, we’re riding  _ that,”  _ Soobin mutters in excitement. 

The feeling of adventure fills up the atmosphere and brings visible joy to everyone. The amusement park is huge, with lots of interesting rides, and the although slightly cold but surprisingly-not-raining weather just adds to the pleasure of being there.

Jimin looks into Yeonjun’s map, wanting to see everything the park has to offer. The taller lowers the piece of paper, so that Jimin can see, making everyone quietly giggle. 

“I think we should start here,” he points at the bumper cars not far away from the entrance to the park. “Me and Jungkookie versus Yeonjunie and Soobinie.” He glances at the two youngest with a wide smile on his face. “What do you say?”

“I say,” Jungkook chimes in, “whoever accidentally bumps into the wall more times is paying for lunch tomorrow.” 

Soobin internally snorts about how this kinda ain’t fair, with how both Jimin and Jungkook have their driver's license, but Yeonjun is already taking the challenge before the youngest could say a word.

“Deal,” he says, with the most challenging eyes Soobin has seen in a while. 

Their initial effort of making a plan fails once they find themselves already getting in their cars. 

They can’t help but laugh at the provocative looks the teams are giving each other as they’re taking their seat.

“You wanna steer?” Yeonjun asks Soobin, although the look in his eyes says that he’s secretly wishing Soobin says no. 

The younger just smiles, first sweetly, but it quickly becomes a playful smile full of sarcasm. “No, you take it, I’ll just sit here wishing you don’t kill us.” Yeonjun laughs at his response and nods. 

“Don’t worry,” he says with too much confidence in his voice. “All I’m absolutely killing is this ride and the challenge they’ve given us.”

The teams give each other the last look before the round starts. Soobin notices it’s Jungkook who’s steering their car, and knowing the two of them, he can’t decide if it’s good for them or not. 

Once they start moving, Yeonjun immediately goes for Jimin and Jungkook’s tail, trying his darn best to bump into them, but ends up hitting the wall instead. Soobin facepalms but his reaction shortly turns into a loud laugh. 

“There goes your challenge murder, Mr. Confident.” 

Yeonjun throws him a quick glance before focusing his gaze on the elders’ car again. 

“That was intentional. Just to throw them off.” 

Soobin quickly finds Jungkook and notices how smug he looks- even with his mask covering half of his face. 

“Well, seems like it worked.” 

The tables now turn as it’s Jungkook chasing Yeonjun and Soobin. He’s successful in hitting them a few times, until Jimin covers Jungkook’s eyes once making him hit the wall. 

Jungkook looks at him in surprise and his gestures show the feeling of betrayal, but it doesn’t last long- until all four of them burst into loud laughter they could hear from each other even with other people in the arena.

The amount of times they hit the walls by the end of the ride is uncountable, therefore they agree to let the challenge slide for this time. They walk out of the arena still high on the joy from attacking each other already taking out the map.

“What next, what next?” Soobin asks like an impatient baby. 

Another stop they agree on is the free fall. The thought of it sends Soobin chills down his spine. 

As they’re walking in its direction, he comes closer to Yeonjun and innocently mutters to his ear.

“I’ve been once. And told myself I’d never go again,” he says, while leaning on Yeonjun’s shoulders. 

Soobin is not usually the one to be scared by these attractions- Yeonjun looks at him in surprise, but puts his hand on Soobin’s back and pats it a few times.

“But you haven’t been with me,” he reassures him, in his usual volume.

Soobin snorts. “Like that’s gonna help.” 

It did not, in fact, help, as Soobin held onto the safety bar with all his might and his eyes were closed shut the entire time; he barely even noticed Yeonjun teasingly nudging him with his knee. 

It’s surprising to him that Yeonjun is relaxed on it that much. 

They persuade Soobin into going two more times. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to wait for them alone, but he secretly found himself enjoying the ride- it’s not as terrifying if he just keeps his eyes closed.

  
  


“I’m thinking teacups next,” Jimin suggests after they sat on a bench to calm down from the previous attraction. 

He looks fondly at Jungkook. “The last time I went I made some nice memories.” 

“Ah,” he responds, “what are you already worn out from all the adrenaline?” He teasingly punches his shoulder. Jimin exhales deeply, like he’s had enough with his little maknae’s banter. 

“Something a bit slower, then we can try something heavier afterwards, hm?” He’s looking at Yeonjun and Soobin, completely ignoring Jungkook.

“Sounds nice to me,” Yeonjun responds and looks at Soobin for a sign of approval from him as well. Soobin nods, making all four of them stand up and go towards their next ride without giving it a proper break. 

  
  


Both of the duos manage to get on one ride at the same time. Arranged the usual style- Yeonjun with Soobin and Jimin with Jungkook- they get inside their cups and start spinning. 

Soobin focuses first on the surroundings- how he can’t seem to catch what’s happening around unless he focuses on a particular point somewhere outside their cup, but later ends up observing Yeonjun without even realizing it. 

He notices how his long locks sometimes fly right across his face making him grimace from not being able to see. (The wind doesn’t fall short of messing up his own neatly styled hair either). 

Above all, he notices the joyous smile plastered on Yeonjun’s face. He’s removed his facemask. 

Yeonjun has always been the kind of person to show his emotions. Some people find it difficult- Soobin does sometimes as well. The cringe one feels when showing a drop of emotion- either positive or negative- it can sometimes really play with people. When they don’t know if you’re being happy, or sad, just because you’re unable to show it.

Yeonjun was not like that. In every sense, he wore his heart on his sleeve. 

It made things ten times simpler for Soobin. 

_ He seems really happy. He needed it, after how much of himself he’s given to the group, always working hard to make things easier for the others. Sure, he’s always smiling. But this time, seeing him enjoy what he’s doing, have the time of his life not having to worry about anything. I wonder, after this trip ends, when will I be able to see this face again? _

  
  


Yeonjun notices Soobin staring. In fact, he’s been looking back at him for a few seconds already, but he doesn’t say anything. Whatever’s going on in Soobin’s mind, he lets him get lost in it. 

Though he can’t help but laugh once Soobin’s eyes widen when he comes back to reality. 

The younger shyly looks away and expects to get teased, but nothing’s coming. 

After gathering enough courage he looks back at his hyung; his eyes are closed, and he is once again absorbed in the situation: a fast-spinning teacup. 

  
  


The ride lasts for a few minutes and flows its way without a word between the two. 

They find a new temporary target- the closest bench for a break again and take a seat, waiting for Jimin and Jungkook. The two find them in no time and already demand another ride.

“Something exciting now,” says Jungkook restlessly. “The pirate ship.” 

Jimin’s eyes light up at the idea, although Soobin can see a slight bit of fear in them as well.

The queue feels way too long for something he’s actually excited about. Yeonjun made sure to make him feel safe, by wrapping his arm around Soobin’s waist, but they both knew that  _ he  _ was the one that was actually terrified and he probably just wanted to keep  _ himself _ safe. 

  
  


It takes another few attractions for Jungkook to finally pick one that they were all excited the same amount about.

  
  
  


The sun has already set. The lights illuminate the park prettily, they have a slight red tint, though the attractions themselves are coloured with their own LED lights. 

Especially the carousel that Soobin and Yeonjun happen to pass by. 

The group has decided to split up for an indefinite amount of time. With Jungkook wanting to try everything the park has to offer, and Soobin being not-so-sure with all of it, the younger two agree to pause for a bit and just walk around. 

There is barely any queue to the carousel, as Yeonjun points out. Neither are there many children using it. 

With how abandoned it looks, and how bad Yeonjun’s ideas sometimes are, Soobin is not even slightly surprised by his hyung’s offer. 

“Soobin-ah, go take a ride at the carousel. I’ll take a picture of you.”

Soobin gives him an unimpressed look.

“No.” 

“Come ooon. Just one ride, why not?” 

He’s slowing down to not pass it too fast, and Soobin notices it, but doesn’t want to match the speed of his steps- so Yeonjun has to speed up again.

He looks at Yeonjun with one raised eyebrow.

“Do I look like a child to you, hyung? I’m pretty tall I’d say.” 

Yeonjun shakes his head. “Yeah, exactly. That’s why it’ll be so cute.” 

Soobin looks at him again, but doesn’t respond. Instead, for some reason that he can’t comprehend himself, he suddenly stops.

“I won’t give in to these terrible ideas you keep coming up with. I’m not embarrassing myself like that.” 

Yeonjun puts his hand on his hip and gives Soobin a smug look. “You’re saying that but you stopped walking.” 

Right. That did happen. And why did he do that again?

Soobin finds himself walking towards the carousel with furrowed brows. The last thing he sees before talking to the worker managing the rides is Yeonjun’s excited face and his hands already looking for his phone in his bag. 

The worker gives him a weird look but otherwise doesn’t interfere. Soobin walks to his seat- a white horse- and uncomfortably sits. 

It takes him one entire round to take in half of the embarrassing situation he’s put himself in. 

He realizes the other half after noticing Yeonjun’s bright face and the wave of his hand to make him look at the camera. He smiles and does a peace sign, although peaceful is the least he’s feeling.

The next round he pulls off his mask and sticks out his tongue, making Yeonjun giggle. 

The next two rounds he flower cups his face and does a heart sign. That’s about all the ideas he gets. 

As if Yeonjun read his mind, he’s the one to make a grimace this time, making Soobin’s face light up with genuine laughter. 

The carousel stops and Soobin quickly walks towards Yeonjun, who is fondly looking through the pictures he’s just made.

“I’m sending this one to Gyu,” he says, proud with his creations. 

“Which one?” Soobin asks, leaning towards Yeonjun’s phone to look at the screen.

“The one where you’re doing a heart sign.” 

Soobin looks Yeonjun straight into his eyes and pouts. “You really hate me.”

The elder smiles ear to ear and looks back at Soobin. 

“No. I love you.” He sends him an air kiss, making Soobin jerk his head in surprise. 

It wasn’t a question of  _ if,  _ but  _ when,  _ ‘cause he’d definitely do it at some point, like he always does.

  
  


The next stop they take is a stall with a minigame and some prizes, where Yeonjun confidently throws a dart towards a balloon, but somehow terribly fails.

“Watch  _ me, _ ” says Soobin, as he throws his first dart, and the loud pop of the balloon is immediately followed by his smug look. It doesn’t last long though, because he misses the next two attempts.

“I thought you’d win a plushie for me, not cotton candy,” complains Yeonjun, already tearing a bit and putting it in his mouth as they walk around again with no destination.

Soobin takes a bite too. It tastes of strawberries- unusual, cotton candy always just tastes like.. sugar. 

“How funny, I thought that about you too. But you didn’t win anything,” Soobin confidently shoots back. Yeonjun snorts at his response. 

The weather has got noticeably colder. The wind is suddenly annoying and strong, unlike how easy it was to ignore when they first arrived. 

Soobin checks his phone for notifications. Neither Jimin nor Jungkook sent any messages, which means they’re still somewhere in the amusement park. They agreed to let each other know if one of the groups wants to leave, but so far it doesn’t look like the night is ending yet. 

The TXT boys have already walked around the entire area of the park safe for one last attraction- the ferris wheel. 

It’s standing at the end of the park. Soobin takes a good look at it- its two-passenger cabins are open and brightly lit. It doesn’t seem to spin too fast or too slow, Soobin wonders why there aren’t all that many people using it. Probably because of the wind. 

Yeonjun looks up to carefully inspect it as well. They stop their walk in front of it and look at each other. They’re both probably thinking the same thing, but Yeonjun is the one to say it out loud. 

“Shall we go? It would be a nice end to this night.” 

There hasn’t been any talk about their plans to leave, but it’s been on Soobin’s mind as well. By the looks of it, it seems like it would be nearing midnight once the entire spin is over. 

Soobin looks at his hand still holding the last bits of the cotton candy on its stick that they’re unable to finish- neither of them are used to so much sugar. 

“Will they even allow us, with this?” He raises his hand to show Yeonjun what he’s referring to. 

Yeonjun shrugs. “No harm in asking.”

Soobin leaves that to his hyung. He watches him from the distance that allows him to hear his voice but he can’t pick up what he’s saying. The exchange between him and the worker lasts a few short seconds, Yeonjun almost immediately turns around and nods, implying that they can go. 

  
  


The first few meters up are spent in silence. 

The two are listening to the distant music from somewhere in the park, and looking around at all the lights surrounding the ferris wheel. 

Yeonjun was right, it  _ is  _ a nice way to end the night.

The view from the wheel is beautiful. Not just the amusement park, but the distant parts of the city are visible as well. Even the wind feels like it belongs with the night; it is not only the reminder of the season, but also of the country they’re currently in. Sometimes, while wandering around, they’d forget about the fact that they’re walking on a soil so distant to the one of their homes. They know, that at one point, they’ll miss South Korea, the food, the culture, the people. 

But not yet. Right now, they’re enjoying the moment. 

  
  


“You know,” Yeonjun is the first to break the silence. “While we were on the plane, I was thinking.” 

Soobin looks at him, showing him that he’s giving him his full attention. 

“I had these lyrics in my head. I was looking forward to coming here so much, to the memories I’d make. I had this concept for a song, that I might write sometime.” 

Soobin raises his eyebrows in surprise and smiles wide. “Wow, hyung.. Working even on vacation. But I think you should definitely go for it.”

Yeonjun laughs at Soobin’s remark. 

“I don’t consider it working. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t even be a proper song on one of our albums.. more like a free release, if anything.” 

While thinking of what to say next, Soobin takes a bite of the cotton candy and offers it to Yeonjun afterwards; the older tears a bit for himself. 

“The concept..” he starts, “is it adventure? Living and making memories?” 

Yeonjun shakes his head. “Initially, yes. But then I thought, you don’t have to live life every day like it’s your last. I remembered our trainee days, where we didn’t do much except for working every day. Of course, I knew I was working towards my future.” He stops for a while before finishing his thought. 

“But if you listen to songs about enjoying life and doing all kinds of exciting things, that can put a lot of pressure on you. Because unless you live your life partying every day, you feel like you failed.” 

Soobin doesn’t respond. He thinks about what Yeonjun just told him.

He is right. Soobin never gave it much thought, but it’s true that he’s felt like that before. Sometimes you spend entire days working, other days you do nothing 8am to 8pm. By the end of the day, you feel like all of it went to waste. 

“So that’s when the conflict came.” Yeonjun exhales deeply. “I want to write about these exciting memories. But.. well, i just explained why I also don’t want to.” 

Soobin looks into the distance. They’re already at the top of the ferris wheel, the view is the widest, but he didn’t even realize. 

“Then.. why not write about that?” 

Yeonjun looks at him in confusion. “About what?” 

“About the conflict. The concept of the song can be exactly what you just told me.” 

A long while of silence follows. Silence interrupted by the cacophony of the music, the loud wind, and the chatter of people in the park. 

Silence also interrupted by Yeonjun’s phone ringing, signaling a message.

  
  


**🍀YJ’s birthday gift🍀**

**JK**

Where are you guys?

Let’s meet up soon. We’ll be waiting by the entrance to the park, ok? :)

**YJ**

We’ll be there in no time!

  
  


Just like the way up, the way down is also spent in silence. 

The last thing said before getting off the ferris wheel is Yeonjun’s final statement uttered in a quiet voice. 

“I might do that. Thank you.” 

  
  


The first thing Yeonjun does when arriving back to the hotel is lying all across the bed. 

Soobin goes straight to the bathroom to take off his makeup and to take a shower. Once he’s done he leaves the bathroom and notices that Yeonjun has already taken his makeup off, he’s sitting on his side of the bed leaning on the pillows behind him, with a phone he’s holding in both of his hands. 

Soobin sits next to him and takes his phone as well. He notices a storm of new notifications.

  
  


**Hueningkai**

I just woke up and the first thing I see is Soobin hyung sending hearts!! All the way from England!!!

**Taehyun**

Why are you on a carousel lol

**Yeonjun**

I have more pictures but I’ll keep them for myself for now hehe

**Hueningkai**

How was the flight?? 

Are you in an expensive hotel?

Wah hyung not fair!! I wanna see all of them

**Yeonjun**

^^

**Beomgyu**

Taehyunie why are you up.. didn’t you go to sleep like two hours ago

Btw great pictures Yeonjun hyung I’ll be expecting more

**Soobin**

@Hueningkai no you don’t

**Taehyun**

Gyu you’re asking me that like we didn't talk during breakfast

**Hueningkai**

@Soobin yes i do

  
  


Yeonjun is smiling while reading the chat, but Soobin looks rather frustrated. But cutely frustrated.

“What’s wrong Binnie? You tired?”

Soobin looks at him and locks his phone. “Yeah, I guess I am. But I don’t want to go to sleep for some reason yet.”

Yeonjun hums. “I get that.” 

He watches Soobin’s hand next to him, holding his phone and drawing random shapes on the locked black screen. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” 

Soobin takes a moment before responding. 

“A walk around the city, but before that, Jimin and Jungkook sunbaenims wanted to go look around the shops. Probably clothes and souvenirs and such.” 

At the mention of clothes Yeonjun’s mood seems to lift up. 

“We’re going too, then?” 

“Yeah, if you want to.” He shrugs. “They asked me if we wanted to join, that we can either go together or find another program if we want to.” 

“Shopping sounds nice to me,” he responds. “Well, only if you want to go too..” 

Soobin senses a bit of insecurity in Yeonjun’s voice and laughs to reassure him. “Of course.” 

It’s not that shopping is his favourite activity, but the trip is Yeonjun’s gift after all. If Yeonjun wants to go hunt for some new clothes, Soobin will gladly follow. 

The room falls into a comfortable silence. Unlike a few hours ago, there are no people walking around and screaming, there is no loud music or howling wind.

Only the comforting tapping of the raindrops washing the windows.

  
  


“Soobin, your hands are huge.” 

The dark haired boy looks at him half confused, half amused. “What prompted you to say that?” 

Yeonjun shrugs his shoulders. “Midnight thoughts.” He looks up and focuses on the ceiling. 

“You’d find a lot of usages with them.” 

The place suddenly grows even more silent, as if the rain just stopped, although it didn’t. 

It takes both of them a while to process what just went out of Yeonjun’s mouth. 

The elder, realizing the implications of the sentence, grew red like a tomato, about as fast as the boy lying next to him did.

They both turn back to back to hide the burning blush on their faces.

“Like playing the piano,” Yeonjun desperately tries to save the situation. 

“Yeah, the piano,” Soobin repeats. “I should learn how to play..” 

The silence, previously relaxing and comfortable suddenly doesn’t feel comfortable at all. 

It takes a few painful seconds for Yeonjun to close the night and hopefully fall asleep as soon as possible. 

“We should.. go to sleep.”

“Yeah.”

“Good night.”

Soobin’s eyes are already closed.

“Good night to you too.” 

  
  
  
  


The barely six hours of sleep are  _ not _ enough and the annoying default sound of Yeonjun’s alarm doesn’t help at all. 

Soobin feels a line of sunshine peeking through the curtains over his eyes as he turns around to tell his  _ bedmate  _ to turn the damn alarm off. He scrunches his face over the sudden blinding light that seems to have chosen only Soobin as its victim. He finds Yeonjun burying his head into his pillow and his hand reaching for his phone.

When the sound finally stops, Soobin exhales deeply and asks what time it is.

“6:45.”

Soobin’s eyes slowly open and he looks at Yeonjun in disbelief- although his facial expression is powerless against Yeonjun’s gaze still fixed on the pretty patterns of the red pillow.

“What the hell made you set the alarm so early.. Aren’t we supposed to go at eight?” Soobin’s raspy morning voice made him sound more hostile than he intended. 

“I’ll go take a shower.” Yeonjun slowly pulls himself out of the bed. He walks over to the window and grabs the curtains with the intention of opening them, but hesitates when he looks over at Soobin lying still half asleep on the bed.

Soobin gives him a death stare that turns into another scrunched facial expression after Yeonjun lets in all the morning light. 

He rolls over to the other side and covers his head with the blanket. He can hear Yeonjun’s footsteps approaching his side of the bed, where his suitcase lies, and after a few rounds of zipper openings and closings, he hears the door to the bathroom and the running water shortly after. 

He must have fallen asleep, as he hears the bathroom door again after what feels like three seconds. 

Yeonjun walks out with wet dripping hair, wearing a simple white T-shirt and black sweatpants. Soobin senses an opportunity to tease him, though the question he asks might actually be a bit genuine. 

“That’s not your final outfit, is it?” 

Yeonjun snorts and shakes his head. He sits on the bed and takes his phone, he’s scrolling through something and he answers without looking at Soobin. “What, you think I look too good in it?” 

Soobin can’t help but snort as well. “Hmpf. As if.”

He looks at his phone. No new notifications, 7:15. He’d better get going, if he wants to look half as decent as he did yesterday. 

He takes all the things he needs and heads to the bathroom to wash his face, clean his teeth, comb his hair, in that order. The clothes he’s chosen today are blue jeans, green sweater and a necklace with a silver lock. He finishes his look with darkening his waterline- not too much, just to make his brown eyes pop.

By the time he leaves the bathroom, Yeonjun is already dressed as well- black pants, a tucked in shirt with a flowery pattern, warm autumn colours and rolled up sleeves, and a bunch of rings and a bracelet on his left hand. He’s holding a small mirror in front of his face and finishing his makeup; when he looks at Soobin after he opened the door, the younger notices that he’s put something around his eyes that make them look different, but he can’t seem to figure out what it was.

Soobin shyly checks out Yeonjun’s outfit and then looks at his own. “Do I look okay?” he asks, wishing for reassurance that he planned his outfit well. 

Yeonjun eyes him head to feet and nods, then goes back to finishing his makeup. “Yeah, you look good, honey.” 

Soobin’s heart goes warm from the compliment from the fashionista Yeonjun himself. So warm that he even ignores the term of endearment Yeonjun just called him. 

Usually he would do a disgusted and confused face or at least roll his eyes. 

  
  


The first stop the four boys take is a small cozy restaurant that apparently offers an amazing breakfast menu. Even for the amount of tourists in London, it’s still relatively quiet and empty. 

Soobin silently listens as Jungkook orders their food. He can’t help but notice how his english has gotten better over the years- after all, he’s been following BTS for as long as he can remember. 

Yeonjun sometimes helps as well.  _ He has a great accent, _ Soobin thinks,  _ and he’s so confident when he speaks.  _ Or at least, he makes it seem like he is. 

While eating, the boys debate the plan for the day. As Soobin stated the previous night, the plan was to go shopping at first, and then a free walk around the city. Jimin was especially eager about the shopping part, for, as they learn,  _ Taehyungie and Namjoon hyung asked him to get them some nice clothes that would fit their styles. _ It’s true what people say about Jimin- how kind he is, and that he’s probably the kind of person to prefer giving gifts over receiving them. 

  
  


Soobin thought about the idea of getting some new clothes. At first he wasn’t the biggest fan of such activity, especially when they’re in a completely different continent and he could do so many more fun things. But then again, it’s not every day that he gets to spend hours in different clothes shops with the most fashionable friend he has, and a few new items of clothing would not hurt his wardrobe either. 

He thinks about that one time he sneakily ran his fingers over Yeonjun’s favourite pieces, admiring the confidence he must have to pull them off, and not realizing Yeonjun was standing right behind him and amusedly watching his every move. 

“Like what you’re seeing?” he asked with a smirk on his face, and Soobin couldn’t help but jump a bit at the surprise of hearing Yeonjun’s voice. 

He got teased a lot after that, but Yeonjun also supportively encouraged him to try some of his clothes on, to maybe find something Soobin would feel good in. He, of course, always refused, and the endless teasing from his hyung ended once they agreed to go shopping together someday- but they never did, as there was no time, and if there was, they did something else. 

Yeonjun had probably forgotten about the promise the two made, and Soobin was not even a bit mad at it. 

  
  


The first shop they enter looks expensive, but quite generic. Nothing outstanding catches the boys’ attention. The second one is more interesting, though only for Jungkook, and the third one makes all of them wait for Jimin. The four come to the realization that as their tastes don’t seem to match, it’d be wiser to split up to two groups once again to save time waiting for each other. 

Jimin takes the role of a parent seriously, making sure Yeonjun and Soobin don’t forget to let the other group know they’re safe and sound every now and then via a text message (and vice versa). 

After parting their ways, Yeonjun stretches and looks at Soobin. 

“Any shop in particular that you’d like to visit?” he asks, like he doesn’t know the answer already before it’s given to him. Soobin shakes his head. 

“It’s on me then.” 

They enter a shop not far away from where they split up. The strong sweet scent greets them right away as they open the door, followed by the calming tune playing through the speakers a bit too loud for Soobin’s liking. 

The two wander around for a bit, just taking in the atmosphere before actually looking at what the store has to offer. Yeonjun’s gaze falls on a section of shirts with animal patterns, Soobin walks over to a stack of folded T-shirts with muted colours. 

“Why so dull?” he hears a voice coming from behind him. After turning around he sees Yeonjun with a selected few items probably waiting to be tried on by him, and he’s looking at the pile of clothes in front of Soobin. “You used to wear bright colours, where did that go?”

Soobin doesn’t think twice before giving his answer. He shrugs his shoulders. “No reason in particular. I’m just not feeling it now.” 

Yeonjun gives him an  _ I see _ look. For a short moment he eyes the pile of T-shirts again and then to navigate Soobin’s attention he raises his hand holding his clothes. 

“I’ll be back in a minute.” 

Soobin hums in response.

  
  


They leave the store without buying anything.

It takes them about half an hour to finally find something worth buying. To their surprise, it’s Soobin who spends his money first.

A brown loose shirt that is  _ almost  _ boring and ordinary, except it’s a little see-through. 

Soobin is standing between four mirrors surrounding him in the changing room. He keeps checking himself out from every angle, head to toes, and he’s feeling a little bit shy but also like he finally found something intriguing that he wouldn’t mind wearing. 

The first thing a person would notice when seeing Soobin wear the shirt is probably his tiny waist. People have always complimented and envied that particular feature of his body. He’s never paid much attention to it or tried to highlight it when choosing his outfits- it’s what his stylists always do though. He doesn’t mind it, without them he probably wouldn’t even realize how much of a desired feature it is. 

But now, looking at himself in the mirror, inspecting every inch of the shirt he chose himself, he feels his confidence slowly fading away. 

“Soobin-ah, are you gonna show yourself or no?” Yeonjun says from outside of Soobin’s changing room. As much as the sentence makes him seem annoyed, he sounds rather impatient. 

Soobin feels a light redness appear on his cheeks. 

“I don’t know, hyung. I like it, but it’s also not something I’m used to.” The more words he speaks, the more quiet his voice grows. “I don’t know.” 

Even through the closed door, he hears Yeonjun’s tongue click. 

“How is that a problem? Of course it’s something you’re not used to, why would you buy clothes you already have?” 

Knowing Yeonjun, he most likely knows how dumb that reassurance sounds and how it’s not what Soobin was referring to, but his goal is to encourage him. It seems to have an effect on Soobin. 

He gives himself the last judgemental look and changes back to his clothes. 

The disappointed look on Yeonjun’s face after Soobin leaves the changing room is quite telling. 

“I’ll take it.. you will probably see me wearing it at some point.” 

Yeonjun shakes his head and lets it go.

  
  


In the next store, it's Soobin who’s waiting outside the changing rooms. He hears the clicking of the hangers, meaning Yeonjun must have already tried some clothes on without showing himself.

The younger impatiently bounces his foot and looks at the ceiling. He notices a fancy chandelier that seems almost misplaced. Curiously, he goes back into the main room filled with clothes stands in search of more fancy chandeliers. 

Upon finding one and coming closer he almost walks into what’s underneath it- a jewelry vitrine. 

He looks inside; as expected, he’s blinded by how pretty the necklaces inside are. 

His eyes immediately fall on an amber necklace- some have insects inside, and those are expensive and quite rare, as far as Soobin knows. 

The one that caught his attention, however, did not have any, but what made it interesting were the silver rays circling around it, making the amber in the center supposed to be the sun. 

For some reason it reminded Soobin of Yeonjun. Maybe it was the blonde hair he’s had for quite some time, or maybe it was his personality. 

Whatever it was, the boy couldn’t look away.

He imagined what Yeonjun’s face would look like if he was given such a gift. His eyes would probably light up his entire face, his enchanting smile would cause everyone butterflies. 

Such an image was a difficult one to try to erase out of Soobin’s mind. 

  
  


At the bottom row of the vitrine, the leader notices what seem to be bracelet charms. It must have been fate, Soobin thinks, as he looks over all the shapes and forms of them. Like made perfectly for what he needs, there is one with a bear, one with a penguin, and one, not exactly a squirrel, but some kind of rodent nonetheless. Soobin figures this is probably as good as it can get. 

“Can I help you?” 

An unfamiliar voice pulls him out of his thoughts. 

He turns around and finds that the person talking to him is someone working in the store. He’s wearing formal clothes, his tie matches the interior, and to top it off, even his accent sounds fancy and elegant- it’s what Soobin imagines the Queen talks like. 

“Ah, yes..” The sudden switch of languages gives him a bit of a hard time. “The bear, the penguin, and the.. rat.” 

The shop assistant smiles. 

He carefully opens the vitrine and takes out the three items, glancing at Soobin here and there to make sure he’s taking out the right charms. 

Just as he’s about to close the vitrine, Soobin stops him.

“And.. the sun.” 

The assistant hesitates for a split second, trying to find what exactly Soobin wants. He finds it at last and takes it out, but doesn’t hand it over to the taller boy. Instead, he asks if there’s anything else he’d like. 

Soobin shakes his head. “I will pay.” 

  
  


The two leave the store both with over two hundred pounds less in their bank accounts, but while Yeonjun is holding an expensive looking paper bag, Soobin’s purchase is hidden in his backpack. 

The older took way too long in the changing room, he didn’t even notice Soobin was up to something in the meantime. He doesn’t ask, and Soobin is internally grateful. 

  
  


“The weather is nice today.” 

Half past twelve and the sun partly covered by clouds just reached its peak.

Soobin looks up to the sky and shields his eyes with his palm.

“It is. Wanna take a break somewhere outside?”

Yeonjun looks at Soobin and a warm smile appears on his face. 

“There should be a park nearby if I’m not mistaken.” 

Yeonjun hums. 

He was not mistaken, a fifteen minute walk led by a map Soobin had downloaded into his phone took them to a massive garden with children running around, people sunbathing or just chatting the day away. 

They find a good spot and put down their bags. Yeonjun opens one and takes out a brown fluffy blanket. To no surprise, Soobin is left speechless at the sight of his hyung placing it on the grass, he has no idea where it came from or why and when Yeonjun bought it. The older can’t help but giggle when he looks at Soobin’s confused face. 

“I knew we’d come here,” he says. “I came prepared.” He throws him a short glance and winks. Soobin looks away. 

The two take a seat next to each other, but leave a space for food they bought on their way between them. Soobin takes out a plastic bowl of strawberries and pours mineral water from his bottle over them, to at least clean them slightly and not feel entirely bad. Yeonjun’s brows are furrowed for a split second, but he ends up seemingly amused and maybe even a bit proud of Soobin’s brilliant idea. 

They wordlessly sit and enjoy their improvised lunch for a short while. Yeonjun is, however, not someone who likes keeping his mouth shut, and he breaks the silence first, talking about whatever comes to his mind. 

He stops again when his face shifts from carefree to focused, like he just remembered something- and he sure did; after turning around and looking through his backpack he takes out a yellow notebook and a pen. 

Soobin has never seen this notebook before. A few ideas of what Yeonjun might use it for flash through his mind, but he doesn’t ask or try to look into it, he just watches as Yeonjun takes out his phone and starts rewriting something from the device onto the pages of the notebook. 

The last time Soobin has seen such an expression on Yeonjun’s face was back in the studio whenever he had to work on their songs, or the choreography, or anything related to their profession. He is a person full of joy and warmth, but such a focused expression feels almost intimidating. 

Yeonjun bites his lower lip and Soobin mirrors this action without even realizing it. 

  
  


The cold wind messes up the older’s hair. 

He fixes his bangs, but they end up falling over his eyes again. Giving up, he looks at Soobin through the locks in his eyes and passes him the notebook he kept writing into the past few minutes. 

“This is what I’ve come up with so far.”

Soobin takes the notebook and looks inside. As he suspected, what he finds are lyrics, though to his surprise the notebook is not full of pages stained with ink- they’re all empty with the exception of two pages right at the beginning. 

“Today during breakfast, or yesterday as I was falling asleep, or during shower.. I collected those thoughts into my phone, but I figured a book with my lyrics would be more organized.” He nods to himself. “I might use it in the future as well.” 

The song he’s reading the lyrics of.. it must be the one they talked about yesterday, Soobin figures. 

He carefully reads each line and rereads the song a few times. Well, not that the song is finished and can be properly re-read. There are some missing lines and some feel like they’re there only to temporarily fill up the space. 

Yeonjun scratches his neck and awkwardly wanders his eyes everywhere but at Soobin’s face. “It’s not finished of course. I’m having trouble with some parts and I haven’t even had time to seriously work on it.” 

Soobin puts the notebook on his lap and gives Yeonjun a supportive look. 

“You said you’d write it just yesterday and you already progressed so much. That’s admirable, hyung.” 

Yeonjun’s hand slides from the back of his neck to the front and he turns his head away, uselessly trying to hide the blush creeping on his face. Soobin finds it endearing and he smiles to himself when he hears Yeonjun’s quiet ‘thank you’. 

He opens the notebook again, still leaving it on his lap, and reads the words for the fourth time but this time adding a melody that Yeonjun can barely hear. He intentionally sings it quietly, trying to bury the sounds in the noises surrounding them. 

“That.. sounds nice,” Yeonjun mutters and scoots closer to the younger. 

“Does it?” Soobin asks, not entirely convinced. “I just made that up.” 

A silent moment passes. Yeonjun seems lost in thoughts, until he looks Soobin dead serious in his eyes and asks.

“Would you like to work on the song as well?” 

His voice sounds serious and determined, but also warm and inviting.

“Me?” he asks, taken aback by the sudden suggestion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, just that, you’ll work on the melody and I’ll write the lyrics. But I would love it if you wrote the lyrics with me too..” Soobin watches him talk in pout, like he does whenever he has a great idea but doesn’t know if others consider it great as well.

Soobin considers the suggestion a huge compliment. He lets Yeonjun know by letting a wide smile appear on his face. 

“It would be a pleasure.” 

Yeonjun frowns. “What?” he asks, confused. “What’s with that formal speech?” He smirks not to sound rude or tense. 

Soobin scratches behind his ear. 

_ You started. _

  
  


They spend the afternoon like that, sitting next to each other, with eyes glued to the small yellow notebook and working even on their vacation. A few hours of brainstorming, random chatting and eating snacks pass, and the wind starts to get stronger and colder.

Soobin suggests wrapping it up and eating a proper meal. They contact the other two and meet in a fancy restaurant, where they discuss their day, the plans for tomorrow and other things. 

  
  


The day ends with their arrival back to the hotel at eight. Or, they thought the day would end, until they hear a loud knock on Soobin and Yeonjun’s door. 

The two exchange a glance before Soobin walks over to open it. 

As expected, it’s Jimin and Jungkook, but the unexpected is the bottle of wine Jungkook is holding in his left hand and waving it side to side, and the huge box held by Jimin. 

Jungkook is smiling wide and he speaks in a high pitched voice. “Mind a visit?”

Soobin, still confused and surprised, doesn’t even think of stepping aside to let them in.

“We found a few board games in our room and, since it’s not that late, we thought that maybe we could have a game?” Jimin, like always, sounds friendly, a person would hardly be able to say no to him. 

Not that Soobin wanted to say no.

He finally steps to the side and hand gestures them to walk in. “Ah, of course, we'd be happy to.”

The two visitors smile and take a seat right away.

On the ground next to Yeonjun and Soobin’s bed. 

“But can they even drink?” Jungkook looks at Jimin while taking a bottle opener out of the pocket of his pants. 

Jimin snorts and takes the bottle out of Jungkook’s hands, intending to open it himself. “Of course they can. You’re the one to speak, you big baby.” 

At hearing them tease one another, Yeonjun giggles. 

  
  


The board game doesn’t seem too complicated.

It looks like Monopoly, apparently it has similar rules according to Yeonjun, who was the only one to read them since they were in english. 

They start the game cautiously, making sure they do only what is expected of them. While waiting for his turn, Jimin pours everyone wine into their teacups they found in the hotel room next to a vintage black kettle and a cupboard of neatly organized teabags of different brands of english black tea. 

After a couple rounds, the atmosphere grows more relaxed and fun. 

“Hey, wait, you stepped on my property so you have to pay me!” Jungkook barks at Jimin, who is trying to hide his sly smirk. He then switches to an expression of puppy eyes and looks at Jungkook innocently. 

“But Jungkookie, I don’t have enough money. Can you forgive me this once?~” 

“No way,” he responds, and an idea pops into his head. “But you can do something else for me to let it pass.” 

He raises his eyebrows.

“Jeez,” Jimin says annoyed. “And that is?” 

Jungkook takes Jimin’s cup and fills it with wine so much that it almost overflows. “Down this.”

The oldest accepts the challenge and snatches the cup out of Jungkook’s hand, making a bit of the beverage spill on his own jeans, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He smirks before spilling the contents of the cup down his throat and after gulping, he pokes tongue at Jungkook and a small drop trails down his chin. 

Soobin and Yeonjun laugh loudly, while Jungkook just responds with a satisfied expression on his face. 

  
  


The company the two groups gave each other made them lose track of time.

The sun has already set and the city noises enter the hotel room through the open window. While some are having fun and getting drunk in pubs and bars, for the four idols a wine bottle and a board game that no one really knows how to play is enough. 

Soobin feels his cheeks with the back of his palm. They’re on fire, and his head feels dizzy, but he feels good. 

He peeks at Yeonjun- he looks a lot more like his normal self, his face is not red and he’s not off his chains like a young man after two glasses of wine would. 

He looks back at Soobin and notices how he’s checking the temperature of his skin. For a bit he just watches, but then he comes closer and places his hand on Soobin’s cheek. 

He nods and hums. “ _ You’re hot,”  _ he says- in english. 

Soobin doesn’t respond, instead he just thinks about why Yeonjun could possibly just randomly switch languages.  _ It must’ve been the wine,  _ he concludes. 

A sound of a camera, followed by Jimin’s loud laughter, pulls him out of his thoughts. 

He took a photo of Jungkook while he wasn’t looking. Caught off guard, he gives Jimin a surprised wide-eyed look, but another click of the camera awaits him. 

Jimin immediately checks his phone and starts laughing even more. 

“Jungkookie, look at your face-” He turns his phone to Jungkook. The younger takes it and quietly laughs at himself. He scrolls to the right once to see the previous picture and shakes his head. 

While Jimin still can’t control his laughter, Jungkook is now the one to take a candid picture of him. 

“Oh, this one is actually good.” 

Jimin takes back his phone but doesn’t bother to look at the picture, instead he looks over at Soobin and Yeonjun and holds his phone in their direction. He doesn’t take a photo though, he just smiles and waits for their consent. 

A short ‘oh’ leaves Soobin’s mouth, before he adjusts himself on the floor to look more presentable. Yeonjun slides closer to him and puts his arm around his shoulders, with the other hand he does a peace sign by his cheek. Soobin awkwardly clasps his hands on his lap and smiles. 

“Aw, this is a cute one,” Jimin says after taking the picture. “I’ll send it to the others.” 

“Is the wine in the shot?” Jungkook asks. Jimin laughs and gives him a side eye. 

“Of course not.” He cunningly smiles and looks at the two younger sitting opposite him. “That’ll be our little secret.” 

“I’ll treasure it in my memory,” Yeonjun says sweetly. A corner of Soobin’s mouth goes up as he responds. “Just make sure the memory doesn’t fly away by tomorrow’s morning.” 

Yeonjun punches his shoulder, but it doesn’t provoke any reaction from the youngest still proud of himself. 

  
  


By eleven o’clock the bottle was already empty and the dice and the fake Monopoly game pieces were all over the place. No one really knows who won and who lost, they were too intoxicated to pay attention or to even know what counts as a win. 

Jungkook yawns and stretches his arms above his head. Jimin looks at his phone and is visibly surprised by what he sees. 

“Oh, we’ve been here for quite some time. Let’s pack it up, Jungkookie, and leave the babies by themselves.” 

Soobin is surprised by the nickname, but rather than being offended, he finds it endearing. 

The four clean everything up fast. Before the visitors leave Soobin manages to thank them for coming and wishes them a good night. They wave to each other on their way out, and after Soobin closes the door, he leans against it and deeply exhales. 

“Tired?” Yeonjun asks, with a sweet tone in his voice. 

The taller walks over and sits next to him, their backs against the bed. 

“Mhm.” 

They sit there in silence for a few seconds. Soobin grabs his cup and starts playing with it, and Yeonjun watches him. 

He turns the cup from side to side, upside down and waits for the last drops to fall out, then he starts tapping his nails on the ceramic surface.

The sound reminds him of the rain tapping on the window this evening similarly like yesterday. 

Yeonjun’s eyes dart from the cup to Soobin’s face and then back to the cup.

“Soobin-ah, have I ever told you that you have pretty hands? Even though they’re so huge. And maybe  _ because  _ of it.”

Soobin sighs in disbelief and amusement. “Yeah, you did. Yesterday.” His gaze goes unfocused. “You said I’d find many usages with them.” 

“I did?” Yeonjun scratches the back of his head and stays quiet for a second. “Well, I wasn’t wrong.” 

The dark haired boy doesn’t give him a response at first. He’s thinking about the conversation from yesterday, trying to remember why he found the compliment so embarrassing back then. 

As if someone was standing on his receiving wiring, he furrows his brows and looks at his hyung a few seconds later. The belated reaction should feel misplaced, but Yeonjun doesn’t seem to even realize it. The alcohol is very obviously comfortably surfing through his veins.

“Ah, hyung, what’s wrong with you? Why do you always give me such compliments out of nowhere..” His pouty lips make Yeonjun pout in response too. 

“It’s not fair,” Yeonjun says. “That you’re so tall and well built and you have such pretty big hands. But also you’re so cute and adorable and sweet-” 

He comes closer to Soobin and pinches his cheek. 

Soobin flinches but ultimately he doesn’t mind. 

At the sight of the shy boy being seemingly unbothered, Yeonjun continues playing with him and moves to his ear.

“To top it off, your voice is so deep. But you’re so endearing.” 

Soobin’s cheeks are still hot from the wine, he can’t even tell if there’s any redness caused by the sudden storm of compliments. 

He’s avoiding any eye contact but Yeonjun surprises him when his face is suddenly a few centimeters from his. From the corner of his eye he can see the older smirking.

“You’re bewitching.” 

Soobin pulls away and looks at Yeonjun in shock. “I’m what?” 

“It’s suddenly so hot in here,” Yeonjun says, completely ignoring Soobin’s question. He walks to the windows to open another one and then lies down on the bed. The leader follows him shortly, after taking out pajamas from his suitcase. 

His mind is clouded by everything that’s happened that day. From the breakfast in the restaurant, through the shopping trip with Yeonjun that felt longer than it lasted, the song they were making together, to the fun evening shared with their BTS sunbaenims. But by far the clearest memory was Yeonjun’s warm touches and warm words, the most recent one, that’s probably why it was occupying Soobin’s mind the most. 

It’s not that Yeonjun doesn’t normally compliment him, quite the opposite actually. But just what in the world prompted him to say it  _ like that.. _

“Yah, Soobin, do you prefer being the big spoon or the little spoon?” 

Soobin waits a bit before turning to face him. “A what? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” 

Yeonjun’s disappointed face quickly changes to a pout. 

“Well, it’s just, if you prefer hugging someone when lying next to them or being the one being hugged.” 

The younger thinks about his answer. “I don’t know.. I guess I’d like to be hugged.” 

“I see,” Yeonjun responds. “Then.. can I hug you?” 

Soobin lies a few moments facing Yeonjun and then turns to the other side. “..Okay.” 

The room gets dark when Yeonjun turns off the lamp on his bedside table. 

Soobin feels how he’s getting tense. He’s used to hugging his members, even sleeping in close proximity with them. But he doesn’t know how to feel now. 

He hears Yeonjun coming closer. He feels him placing his hand around Soobin’s waist and, he’s not sure if he’s imagining it, or if he  _ did _ pull him closer to himself. His breath lands on Soobin’s neck and it keeps sending chills down his spine. 

But it’s not bad. It’s.. nice.

Calming. 

  
  


It’s calming. But not calming enough to send Soobin to sleep. Ten minutes later, and he’s still awake and still painfully aware of Yeonjun’s touch. He doesn’t know if he’s asleep. His breathing is even and he’s not moving, so he probably is.

But he decides to test it anyway.

“Hyung?”

He’s met with silence. 

He starts counting seconds, maybe it’ll help him fall asleep sooner. 

_ One.. _

_ Two.. _

_ Three.. _

“Hm?” 

_ So he isn’t asleep. _

“It’s already 13. in Korea.”

He hums.

“That means it’s already your birthday.”

He hums again.

“Happy birthday, hyung.”

A moment of silence, and he feels a very subtle brush of Yeonjun’s fingers on his tummy. 

Yeonjun responds in a soft tone.

  
  


“Thank you, Soobinie.” 


	3. Chapter Three

The following morning Soobin wakes up by himself.

He lazily opens his eyes and looks around. Yeonjun is sitting next to him, his phone in his hands, and has a content expression on his face. He’s not saying or typing anything, just scrolling down and smiling to himself like an idiot. 

Soobin looks at his phone.  _ 8:12 _ . 

_??? _

His mind is filled with confusion.

He turns around to face Yeonjun. “What are you doing?” 

The older turns his head to him sharply like he just noticed Soobin has woken up. “Oh! Good morning. I’m reading Weverse posts.” 

_ Right. It’s his birthday. _

“No, I mean, why didn’t you wake me up? It’s already so late.” 

Yeonjun doesn’t seem bothered that by now they should already have been packed to leave, but instead he’s just chilling on the bed and letting Soobin sleep. 

“You didn’t see?” Yeonjun asks. “Check the groupchat. I woke up before the alarm rang and read it so I turned it off not to wake you up.” 

Soobin takes his phone again. Sure enough, there  _ is  _ a new message that he didn’t notice.

  
  


**🍀YJ’s birthday gift🍀**

**JK**

I have to deal with some things and I’ll be back in the hotel at around nine, we can leave then

Sorry I didn’t tell you guys sooner ;; feel free to continue sleeping

  
  


“Ah, so that’s the case,” Soobin mutters to himself. 

“I’m actually surprised you didn’t wake up,” Yeonjun says, visibly entertained after he looks at Soobin’s still sleepy and puffy face. “My family called me earlier. I talked to them while sitting right here.” A smirk forms on his lips. “You didn’t move an inch.” 

Soobin sighs and buries his face into the pillow. 

“A bad dream? Or a good one, that you didn’t want to wake up from?” 

Lately, everything feels like a vivid dream. Next thing he knows, he’ll wake up in the company with a cup of unfinished coffee by his side and a blanket thrown over him by one of his members. 

After looking through his suitcase for no specific reason he goes to the bathroom to take a long shower. The water on his skin feels refreshing, although the boiling drops pierce into him like needles. 

He walks out of the shower and scans himself in the mirror.  _ Knowing today’s plan, I don’t feel like wearing makeup. _ He grabs the small bag by the mirror he left there yesterday. After opening it to take out the things he needs for at least moisturizing his face, he notices a new addition to his makeup collection.

Right.  _ The highlighter. _

He bought it yesterday while him and Yeonjun were hunting for new clothes and put it inside the bag as they came back to the hotel, though he’s completely forgotten about it. 

It’s not something that’s used as much by his stylists. Sure, he’s seen idols wearing it here and there, but it’s not as common as in the west. It’s pretty popular here, but.. God knows how Soobin will look with it or  _ why he even bought it in the first place.  _

What will Yeonjun think? Will he like it?

  
  


After ten minutes he leaves the bathroom with no makeup on, but the sunshine peeking through the windows reflects from his cheekbones and above his upper lip. Yeonjun, still sitting on the bed, looks at him, but Soobin has a feeling that his gaze is not fixed on his eyes, but rather a little lower. 

Though he doesn’t comment. 

  
  


Out of a sudden, a familiar tune starts playing through both Soobin and Yeonjun’s phones. 

Soobin looks up at Yeonjun- he’s crouching by his suitcase packing his things-, Yeonjun picks up the call and a loud mixture of voices greets them afterwards. 

“Happy birthday, hyung!” 

Yeonjun’s face lits up after seeing the three familiar faces on the screen. Soobin hurries to sit next to the honoree; he pushes himself close enough to be visible on the screen. 

“You guys.. thank you, I have no words.” The oldest is clearly touched by the call from his friends.

Similarly to the hyungs, the maknaes are also squeezed one by the other to fit the frame. Taehyun and Beomgyu are lying on the floor of their practice room, while Hueningkai is squished half between half on top of them. He’s holding a single candle, making everyone worry about the fire, but he himself looks enthusiastic more than anything. 

“Quick hyung, blow the candle!” 

Yeonjun smiles wide and blows on his phone, followed by the three putting out the fire themselves right after, clapping and wooing. 

Soobin doesn’t say or do anything, just proudly watches the others from behind Yeonjun. 

“You have to wish for something.” 

The leader watches Yeonjun through the small window on the top right corner of his mobile screen. He closes his eyes and can’t contain his bubbly smile dancing on the corners of his mouth. Sometimes this hyung can really act like a baby, Soobin thinks. 

  
  


“So how’s the vacation going?” Taehyun asks with a beaming smile on his face, ready to hear every detail.

“Amazing,” Yeonjun responds with the same amount of joy, ready to  _ share _ every detail. “So far we’ve seen London and what it has to offer, today we’re going a bit south.” 

“Oh!” Beomgyu storms in. “Stonehenge?” 

“No. Alton.” The response evokes a spaced out expression on Beomgyu’s face. “We’re going for a bit of hiking today.” 

“Then.. shouldn’t you already be on your way?” The wise question comes from Hyuka. 

Yeonjun runs his hand through his hair. “That's right, but..” he stops for a second. “Something got in the way. But we’ll be leaving soon.”

Soobin looks at the time on Yeonjun’s phone- 8:33. Jungkook should be here in half an hour; they should already be ready to leave, though Yeonjun is still in his sweatpants. 

  
  


At 8:50 Soobin’s leg starts to bounce. He’s the happiest to talk to his friends, but the responsible side of him is building tension in him, making him quite nervous. He puts on what he hopes is a neutral expression, but despite how good of an actor he is, even through the phone screen and an entire continent, Taehyun seems to notice. 

“We should get back to work,” he says, while maintaining eye contact with the leader. He then looks at Yeonjun and smiles wide. “Enjoy the rest of the trip, the two of you. And don’t celebrate too hard. I want you to come back safe, so that I can give you my own present.” 

Yeonjun’s voice sounds impatient as he speaks. “A present? What is it?~” 

Taehyun doesn’t respond, just glances at Soobin for a split second, and Yeonjun catches it. He turns to Soobin and then back at Taehyun. 

“What? You know?” With question marks written all over himself he scans Beomgyu and Hueninkai, but only gets dumb frozen smiles on their faces. “You guys all know?” 

“Well then,” Taehyun sighs, “we’ll be going.” 

“Goodbyeee~” the three shout in unison as they wave before Beomgyu turns off the videocall. 

“What did I deserve to receive so much love from all of you,” Yeonjun wonders. To shift the conversation, but also to finally let go of his worries, Soobin nudges the oldest. 

“Get dressed, we’ll be going soon.” 

  
  


A familiar knock on the door resonates through the hotel room a few minutes after. It’s Soobin who goes to open the door again, but this time he instantly steps aside. 

Jimin and Jungkook enter their room singing the happy birthday tune and swinging their heads side to side. Yeonjun’s eyes snap wide open when he sees a tray of muffins in Jungkook’s hands and a cheesecake in Jimin’s. 

He covers his mouth in shock and immediately stands up to greet the two. 

The awkward stance he’s in shows that he’s not really sure how to respond, but his face is full of gratitude and joy. 

He takes the muffins from Jungkook and places them on the closest table, where Jimin also puts the single piece of cheesecake. 

“I wanted to buy the entire cake but Jungkookie said you wouldn’t eat it all and we’d have to throw it out, since we can’t leave it here. I guess he was right.” 

“No, I’m.. really thankful,” Yeonjun says through his ear to ear smile. He turns to Jungkook, as he looks like he’s waiting for him to. And sure enough, he’s holding something in his hands.

“We didn’t know what you’d like, so we got you this.. it’s not anything grand, but hopefully you’ll like it nonetheless.” 

Yeonjun takes the present and looks at it closer, and a gentle smile forms in his lips. He looks at Soobin, then back at the object and smiles even wider. 

Soobin comes closer to see what it is. 

A framed picture. It’s a simple wooden frame, but it has a laser engraved date of the previous day on the upper left corner, and the picture is the one of Soobin and Yeonjun that Jimin took. 

Yeonjun turns the picture to the other side.

_ HBD, from JM & JK  _

This one is not engraved, merely written with a permanent marker, but it gives it even more of an authentic feel. 

No one probably thought about how intimate this present feels, but maybe it’s just Soobin and his eternally overthinking self. 

  
  
  


A day full of walking and stopping at local convenience stores to refill water and snacks lets itself be known on the bodies of the four young men. By the time they’ve passed about 70% of the hike (that’s at least what Jungkook says and the others have no option but to trust his judgement), Soobin can feel muscle fever already settling in his legs. Frankly, it’s no one’s fault but his own, for hating any kind of exercise and not being used to moving as much as the others that, unlike the youngest, don’t show any signs of struggle. Yeonjun even told him earlier that had it not been for such an activity on their trip, he’d just sneak out to the gym at some point, because he’s apparently already neglecting his usual routine too much. 

Apart from such a slight inconvenience that is the lactic acid building up in Soobin’s muscles, the day works out perfectly. He makes use of his blue see-through raincoat exactly once for a quick shower that goes as fast as it comes. The scenery, the company the four give each other and Yeonjun’s phone never leaving his hand to take pictures at Beomgyu’s request truly give it a feel of a proper vacation. 

“You good?” is a question a bit too frequent for Soobin’s liking, and he can’t even tell if it’s just Yeonjun teasing him or if he’s serious anymore. Nevertheless, he gives him a thumbs up every time and a faint smile that deep down hides gratitude. 

  
  


The second arrival at the new hotel -the first time was to bring their luggage before going for a hike- feels totally different now that the sky is bathing in shades much darker. The hotel looks a lot less like a luxurious villa and a lot more like a cozy cottage in the countryside of England. 

  
  


“My hair looks terrible.” 

Soobin finds it neither fortunate nor unfortunate that they again get to share the same hotel room and the same bed. 

They should already be used to it at this point. 

He looks at Yeonjun sitting on a dark brown sofa under a wooden window and watches him play with his long locks. “No, it doesn’t,” he disputes in attempts to cheer him up, but Yeonjun’s pout only deepens. He raises his gaze up on the TV on the other side of the room that’s playing just as a background noise and neither of them are really paying any attention to it. 

“We’re going back to London tomorrow, right?” 

Soobin, always prepared and well informed, doesn’t need to think twice. “Yes. We’ll be having a walk around the city with a tour guide.” 

“I see.” He leaves his eyes to wander along the gaps of the wooden floor. “But that’s not in the morning, is it?” 

Just as he finishes his question, he jumps surprised by the loud thunder coming from somewhere in the distance. 

“No,” Soobin shakes his head in confirmation, “as far as I know we don’t have any plans for tomorrow morning. Jimin sunbaenim said that he wanted to have a walk through the gardens around here, though.” His voice grows a little higher. “Why are you asking?” 

“Well, it’s just that,” Yeonjun starts, still playing with his hair, “the colour doesn’t look good anymore. And it’s getting longer too.” 

It’s true, his hair  _ is  _ getting a bit longer than usual. Soobin doesn’t necessarily thinks it looks bad, though, if he wanted to he could pull off the kind of hairstyle he used to wear for the Puma stages; his bangs styled back was actually one of Soobin’s preferences of Yeonjun’s hair. 

He decides not to think about why he has a hierarchy of Yeonjun’s superior hairstyles listed somewhere in the back of his mind. 

“Would you mind accompanying me to a hairdresser?” 

_ So that’s where he was going.  _

“Uh.. sure, I’ll go,” Soobin reacts reluctantly. 

For a moment he lets the female voice coming from some kind of historical romance through the TV occupy his senses, fighting the urge to stand up from the bed he’s sitting on. But he fails horribly, when he catches himself already sitting down on the sofa next to his friend to get the last look of his pretty hair before it’s gone. 

Yeonjun’s watching him closely, trying to figure out the motive behind the sudden change of his location. 

To Soobin’s internal surprise, he is also trying to figure the proper motive out.

As he sits down, he rests his chin on his knees and hugs them tightly with his arms. Another thunder strikes and the rain grows heavier, creating a loud monotone melody against the window above the two silent boys.

It’s almost like a scene from a movie.

  
  


“You know I’ve always loved you, right?” 

The room grows quiet.

Soobin awkwardly turns his head to face the person speaking the confession.

The male lead of the historical drama, holding his love interest close enough to create a romantic suspense, accompanied by a subtle background music filling not only the movie, but the hotel room as well. 

Soobin is watching the scene unfold, he unknowingly went from painfully wanting it to end to actually being drawn in. 

  
  


He does not remember how the scene unfolds, however. But what he  _ does  _ remember is  _ someone  _ putting a blanket over him, as the room grows darker and the TV volume lower and lower. He remembers the scent of a familiar cologne and he remembers a sweet voice saying the last words of the evening.

“Soobinie. If you sleep on the couch, your back will hurt..

Let’s move you to the bed.” 

  
  


That night, a new inch of Yeonjun’s body became known to Soobin.

Much like the night before, the older did not hesitate to hug him goodnight with the intention to keep him close until morning. What he did not plan on was to accidentally hug him  _ too close,  _ with his lips gently brushing against Soobin’s neck. 

The taller was not exactly sure what woke him up in the middle of the night. Maybe it was the storm still circling outside, or the unfamiliarity of the new surroundings. Maybe it was the warmth of Yeonjun’s exhales, or the tickling sensation of his lips against his skin. 

Whatever it was, it was keeping him wide awake and lost deep in thoughts. 

But all of it became irrelevant when a sudden realization kicked him. 

That there’s something  _ he forgot.  _

  
  
  


Soobin wakes up with a feeling of a sore throat. 

The windows are slightly open; they’re letting in the clear sounds of the still present thunders. 

Something about the morning feels calmer, though- it’s either the ambience of the sounds (the running water in the bathroom, the weather, the rustling sounds of the freshly woken up boy rolling around the bed), or the fact that he doesn’t have to worry about making his sunbaenims wait.

_ 7:29. _

Yeonjun immediately greets him with a smile after leaving the bathroom and seeing that the younger is already awake. 

“Good morning, Binnie.” His soft voice compliments his crescent eyes. 

“Morning,” Soobin responds,  _ his _ voice being raspy and deep. 

He runs his hand through his hair, trying to look decent enough- compared to Yeonjun with his wet hair letting drops trace his gorgeous facial features down to his chin, he feels like hiding himself under the soft duvet. 

“I called the hairdresser and booked the appointment.” Yeonjun sits on his side of bed and gently fixes a stray strand of Soobin’s uncombed morning hair. “We have time, but I’d like to go sooner, just in case.” 

“Okay,” the younger says quietly as he watches Yeonjun’s arm move with the subtle motions of his fingers touching his hair. 

“Then, will you call the taxi?” 

“No, I’d like to experience the double-decker bus.” 

“Ah,” Soobin hums, impressed by the idea. “Alright, I like it. But don’t get us lost.”

Yeonjun’s short laughter makes Soobin smirk.

  
  


After arriving back to London, it feels like they’re on an adventure. Yeonjun keeps looking at the notes in his phone, trying to figure out where to go and what bus to get on; Soobin is getting a bit impatient. “Maybe calling the taxi would’ve been the better option. It’d be so much easier,” he mutters under his breath, not expecting the other to hear it through the rain and the traffic noise. 

“Easier, but so much less fun,” he responds, eyes still glued to his phone screen.

After eight minutes of standing in the rain and restlessly rotating the umbrella handle in his palm, Soobin finally lets off of the tension in his body after hearing the words:  _ This one is ours. _

Yeonjun can’t help but add to it to annoy the younger. “Told you we were at the right bus stop. Trust your hyung more.” 

Soobin friendly hisses back at him, “We’re not there yet.”

After walking up the stairs, the two exchange a happy look upon seeing that the place is half empty. They hurry to take a seat, Yeonjun takes the one by the window. 

He looks out, then back at Soobin, and sighs. “It’ll be a long one.” 

The younger nods. 

When the bus starts moving, he looks around. Everyone is minding their own business, either looking out of the window, or doing something on their phones. 

He glances at Yeonjun (the older is also looking out of the window), and rests his head on his shoulder. Yeonjun doesn’t flinch or look, he accepts the act of subtle affection. 

Over the years, the shoulder of the other has become a safe space for them _. _ Whether it be after a long day of work, a personal struggle they entrust each other with, or just a need of being close to the other. They always accept each other with open arms and a gentle smile.

Right now, Soobin is more than willing to trust Yeonjun in the unfamiliar city, among strangers, all speaking a different language. 

He closes his eyes. 

  
  


“We’re here,” he hears after a while and feels the older tap him twice on his thigh. 

The place looks big, until they’re led to a ‘separate room for Choi Yeonjun’. The room is designed in calming lilac, and the air smells of shampoo and hair conditioners. There’s one seat for the customer and a black couch behind. Soobin sits down after greeting the hairdresser and awkwardly clasps his hand on his lap. Yeonjun, in the meantime, is having a conversation with her about the desired length of his hair and the right colour. Soobin is once again surprised by how casually he’s able to deal with things in english. 

He’s fascinated by the work in progress. He’s constantly switching glances between the hairdresser's hands and Yeonjun’s reflection in the mirror. His eyes are closed and he’s barely moving, he looks like he’s not even breathing. He wonders what Yeonjun is thinking about.

The hairdresser trims his hair neatly and, fortunately for Soobin, not as short as he expected- it’s exactly the length that the younger likes best. 

After cutting Yeonjun’s hair, a long process of colouring begins. The silence is here and there interrupted by the hairdresser’s attempts for a small talk; Soobin is almost sure she mentioned ‘the friend in the back’, but he doesn’t know  _ what _ they said, because he was daydreaming too deeply. 

  
  


Yeonjun runs his hand through his freshly blow-dried hair and checks himself out in the mirror. He notices Soobin staring and turns around to face him. 

Soobin almost, for some reason, blushes at the sight of the renewed look accompanied by Yeonjun’s charming smile. 

“Well?” he asks with the expression and the tone in his voice that Soobin grew to recognize well- Yeonjun is expecting compliments, but at the same time, he is asking for a genuine opinion. Soobin rewards the older’s kind smile with a nod and a smile of his own. 

“You look great,” he says quietly. 

He can read the relief leaving Yeonjun’s shoulders. 

  
  


On their way back to the city centre, they take the bus again. Similarly to before, they find two seats on the upper deck and Yeonjun sits by the window with Soobin’s head rested on his shoulder. This time, however, they’re also sharing headphones connected to the older’s phone.

Soobin notices the switch of playlists. When they were on the plane, it was mostly hip-hop with socially aware lyrics, now it’s all love songs. Especially acoustic with soft vocals and some R&B. 

Actually, it might not have been a switch of playlist, he must have made a new one. As far as Soobin knows, Yeonjun didn’t normally listen to such songs. 

They were putting Soobin to sleep. If Yeonjun put his arm around him and did as much as brush his hand against Soobin’s tired body, he’d sure send him to sleep. 

But thankfully he didn’t. 

  
  


After arriving to where they were supposed to meet the other two, they’re informed that their belongings were safely moved to the new hotel they’ll be spending the last night of England in. After being sent the location of the hotel, in case the two groups get separated again, a new piece of information drops- that the hotel rooms also contain a corner with kitchen counters, a stove; basically all the appliances a kitchen would need. Apparently because Jimin suddenly misses korean food and wants Jungkook to cook something familiar to him. 

It’s totally not like they booked the rooms months in advance. 

  
  


Almost like it was intentional from Soobin and Yeonjun’s side, they have arrived just in time for the city guide to start. Hooded up and masked not to get recognized, the four take a walk around the capital’s most known places- Buckingham Palace, The Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey.. all that one would find fascinating, and the four Koreans certainly did. When walking past the Wax museum of Madame Tussauds, and being told that the world’s most famous celebrities can be found there, Soobin and Yeonjun exchange a knowing look and a smirk. 

_ It’s not like they have two members of the biggest boyband in the world and two members of a successful rising group right there.  _

When walking around the park the two have already visited, Soobin gets lost in the memories of the sunny day. He wonders if Yeonjun has progressed in the song they were so passionate to finish. 

  
  


After three hours of walking and learning about the history of London, the guide stops in just the right time to get prepared for the evening. 

“Would you like to go with me?” Jimin asks Soobin in a kind and friendly tone. 

He’s referring to a convenience store- he’s assigned with a mission of getting all the necessary ingredients. As Yeonjun will mostly do the cooking in  _ their _ room, Soobin concludes that it would only be fair to do this part of the job and nods. 

“Great, then we’ll go that way and we’ll be back when we get everything.” He smiles cheekily. “Have fun in your hotel rooms in the meantime.” 

Jimin puts his arm around Soobin and turns him around. The taller one doesn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to Yeonjun and Jungkook, as he’s already being dragged away. 

He exchanges one last look with his bandmate before he turns his head to face the direction of his walk.

  
  


On the way to their desired destination, Soobin feels like he’s once again alone facing a phone broadcasting Jimin and himself live in the common room of the BigHit building. Although he’s gotten much closer to his seniors during the trip, he still finds himself feeling a bit awkward and not being sure what to say, so it’s, like usually, Jimin who’s doing most of the talking. 

He’s describing what him and Jungkook were doing when the groups parted ways, his experiences and overall feelings of the vacation. Soobin feels comfortable just nodding and smiling, with a few “right” thrown in the conversation to show he’s paying attention. 

“What about you?” Jimin asks suddenly, turning his head to the right and a bit up to meet with Soobin’s concentrated eyes. “What have you been doing?” 

“Ah,” he starts, quickly running a recapitulation of the trip so far in his head. “I’ve- I’ve been.. working.. a bit.”

Jimin hums. “I guess that can’t be helped, can it? I’ve also thought about work. When you’re so used to it, I suppose I can’t blame you, or me. Even though I try to filter out everything work related, I can’t. But that’s what pushes your forward, right?” 

He continues rambling, but Soobin’s mind is already somewhere else and he stopped listening god knows where. 

He gathers all his courage before it runs out, but there's not enough for him to look at Jimin when asking a question that has been bothering him, but he can’t tell for how long. 

“Jimin sunbaenim, can I ask you something?” He notices Jimin’s glance at him through the corner of his eye. 

“Of course. What is it?” 

“How do you know if you like someone?” 

He wishes to look confident and have a determined look on his face, but he knows that it’s the opposite. 

The rain stopped about an hour ago. Normally, Soobin would be glad, but this time he’d give everything to be able to hide himself with an umbrella. 

  
  


“Hmm..” 

Jimin doesn’t respond for a while. They walk a few steps in silence, as the older one thinks about the question he was hit by. Thankfully, he keeps his head turned straight, probably knowing that Soobin doesn’t want an eye to eye conversation right now. 

When he speaks, his voice sounds genuine. “I don’t think there’s one right way to find out. People say that you just  _ know _ . But.. sometimes it’s complicated, and you can get confused. Feelings can be very difficult sometimes.”

Soobin takes every word in and slightly nods, thinking Jimin is finished. But after a short pause, he continues in his monologue. 

“However, a person can look for signs if they’re unsure. Like they want to spend a lot of time with that one person. Or they always find them beautiful, no matter how they look, dressed up or with messy hair. Or, there are these trivial things, like you find yourself wanting to look good in front of them. These can apply for a very strong friendship too, of course, but.. relationship, after all, isn’t all that different from that. There can be no love if there’s no friendship.”

  
  


A strong wave of wind blows and messes up Soobin’s hair. When trying to fix his dark bangs with his right hand, he takes the opportunity of hiding his face to glance at Jimin. 

He looks serious. He took the question to heart and gave his response from it. Nowhere does it look like he wants to tease Soobin about it, which the younger one appreciates greatly. 

“I see. Thank you,” he mutters quietly. Jimin smiles. 

  
  


“You know the song ‘Sweet Night’ by Taehyungie, right?” 

The dark haired boy hums as the tune of the song he’s heard a few times starts playing in his head. 

“I think he was trying to capture something similar. It’s a beautiful song, he wrote it really well. But, the way I interpret it, there’s already regret in those lyrics. But by the way you speak, it feels like in your case, nothing is lost yet.” 

_ By the way you speak, _ he said, but Soobin hasn’t said anything besides the question itself and a quiet ‘thank you’. He decides not to think about it, though, and thanks Jimin again, before letting of this intimate conversation go. 

  
  
  


Yeonjun takes a few seconds to open the door after Soobin tiredly knocks. 

“Oh my god, Soobin,” he says as he's taking the heavy paper bag from Soobin’s hands. “What in the world do you want me to cook with all of these?”

They close the door and Soobin follows Yeonjun to the ‘kitchen corner’ of the room that really just looks like a whole kitchen, taking up half of the hotel room itself. 

“Korean stuff is expensive here,” Soobin says as he scratches the back of his head, “but I couldn’t help myself.” He sits on a bar stool and watches Yeonjun put everything from the bag on the counter. “Black bean noodles? I kinda felt like eating that.” 

Yeonjun gives him a dead look. “That will take me the entire evening.” 

Soobin pouts and gives the older puppy eyes while jumping up and down on the bar stool. “Please? I’ve already bought the ingredients anyway. And it can’t take that long.” 

Yeonjun looks back at the counter with food all over it and puts his hair behind his right ear, although it falls back to its original place. 

“Okay, let’s do it then. Good thing I found two aprons in here,” he says and smiles as he opens a drawer and takes out two identical grey ones. Soobin leaves his mouth hang open for a short while as he watches Yeonjun unfold them, but ultimately takes one from his hands- he wouldn’t leave it all to his hyung anyway, although he worries that his hand in the process might do more harm than good. 

“Alright then, let’s get to it. Oh, wait, let me get my phone.” Yeonjun walks over to their bed where his phone is laying, but he starts going through his stuff in his suitcase too. Soobin watches him as he’s washing his hands in the sink. 

“I got it,” he says and takes something out of the suitcase, but Soobin can’t see what exactly it is. It’s small enough though to be held in Yeonjun’s left hand, while he’s clicking something on his phone with his right hand while walking towards Soobin. 

A female voice rings through the room as she announces that Yeonjun’s phone is  _ connected. _

“You brought a bluetooth speaker?” Soobin asks, amused. “What are you gonna play, Tomorrow x Together discography?” 

“Not quite,” Yeonjun responds. “I’m feeling jazzy today.” 

He puts his phone on the counter and a few seconds after the air fills with a soft piano and a trumpet. 

Yeonjun turns on the lights above the counter- the room was quite dark, although the sun has not set yet. Soobin looks up; there are four low hanging lights above him. He thinks about how the kitchen looks somewhat like the one they cooked once on To Do, only this one is styled in dark colours. 

  
  


“I’ll deal with the meat, you can cut the vegetables in the meantime.” 

Yeonjun rolls up his sleeves and ties his apron behind his back. He hasn’t even started cooking yet, but he already emits an aura of domesticity and for some reason Soobin can’t help but be carried away by the image in front of him. He’s almost attracted to his bandmate now. 

He grabs a knife and starts cutting the vegetables, as Yeonjun requested. He’s not saying anything, choosing to focus on the task. 

He can’t focus well enough, though- Yeonjun standing one metre from him on his left is distracting him with his moves, as his inner dancer is breaking through the shell of his current position of a cook. 

His hips move to the rhythm of the jazz song and he’s probably not even aware of it. He does this sometimes, as Soobin and the other TXT members have noticed, letting his body be completely taken away by the music, or rather becoming one with it. It’s one of his charms that Soobin used to wish to have, but now he’s more than okay with the fact that it’s Yeonjun’s special thing. 

After a few minutes of preparing the food and listening to the smooth music Yeonjun turns around to grab what he needs to marinate the meat he’s been cutting until now. When he gets everything and places it in front of himself, he looks over at Soobin, inspecting how things are going on his side.

“You’re still not finished?” he teases him.

Soobin frowns and starts cutting faster. 

“You know how it’s in the movies,” Yeonjun says suggestively but keeps a bit of sarcasm in his tone. He approaches Soobin with dancy steps and stands behind him, putting his arms around Soobins’ and holding his right hand to cut the vegetables with him. “Like this.” 

An unfamiliar feeling takes over Soobin. He has no time to think about it though, all his senses are now focused on Yeonjun’s hand tightly holding his and on how he’s still swaying side to side. He’s standing so close that his movements make Soobin lightly swing with him. 

For a moment Soobin wishes this weird feeling would fade away as fast as possible.  _ It’d be great if Yeonjun stepped away too, _ he thinks,  _ as fast as possible.  _

He thankfully goes back to preparing the noodles, taking a pot and pouring water in it. 

He can’t keep himself from moving side to side, however, and his energetic mood is slowly growing on the leader too. 

  
  


A jazz song that was playing the past five minutes stops and is replaced by a melody Soobin recognizes well. 

_ You’re just too good to be true, _

he’s gradually moving more and more,

_ Can’t take my eyes off of you, _

until Yeonjun notices and leaves his place again to dance his way back to Soobin.

_ You’d be like heaven to touch, _

He grabs his hand,

_ I wanna hold you so much _

And spins him around, making the taller blush in giggle. 

_ At long last, love has arrived _

He had to stand on his tiptoes to properly hold Soobin’s hand above him- when Soobin notices that, he giggles even more. Yeonjun doesn’t seem embarrassed, the look on his face screams pure joy. 

_ And I thank God I'm alive _

The dancer lets go of Soobin’s hand and cheerfully jumps back to continue cooking. He’s preparing a saucepan for the black bean paste, but his ecstatic mood suddenly gets interrupted when he runs through the ingredients on the counter. 

“We don’t have sugar?” 

_ You’re just good to be true, _

Soobin quickly shakes his head. “No! No, we  _ do  _ have it, it’s just that Jimin sunbaenim took it, it would be a waste to buy it twice, right?!” he explains as fast as he can, trying to eliminate the disappointed expression off of Yeonjun’s face, because seeing him like that hurts. “I’ll go get it!” 

He runs out of their room but, embarrassed, goes back to tell Yeonjun he doesn’t even know what room Jimin and Jungkook are staying in.

Yeonjun laughs at the sight of Soobin eagerly running off only to come back a few seconds later. 

He smiles fondly. “Room 16.” 

_ Can’t take my eyes off of you. _

Soobin nods.

He comes back with a packet of sugar as promised and hopes Yeonjun will not notice the fast pace he chose on his way back. 

He just wanted to go back to cooking and dancing and having fun. 

  
  


By the time he goes back to his quest of cutting the food into little squares, another song starts. 

_ Put your head on my shoulder _ _   
_ _ Hold me in your arms, baby _ _   
_ _ Squeeze me oh-so-tight _ _   
_ _ Show me that you love me too _

“Since when did you want to listen to  _ this _ ?” Soobin asks curiously as the corners of his mouth curl up. “I thought you ‘felt jazzy’.” 

Yeonjun smirks and while answering, he’s keeping his eyes on the stove. “You don’t like it?” 

“No, that’s not it. I love these songs,” the younger responds. 

Yeonjun sighs. “Well, it’s not me who’s choosing the songs. They play automatically.” He takes a spoon and stirs a bit of sugar in with the black bean paste in the saucepan. “Since we both like them, I guess there’s no harm in letting it play?”

He throws a wide smile in Soobin’s direction. The leader can only do the same. 

  
  


Time passes as the two continue to work towards their desired dinner. Phrases like ‘please do this’ or ‘can you pass me that’ fly across the room as Soobin obediently listens to Yeonjun’s directions. 

The two singers, immersed in the sounds of frying meat in hot oil and sweet words of the old classics, don’t fail to let themselves be carried away. No eyes on them, only there for each other, they break into random dances together and uncontrollable laughter following when one of them notices a sharp burning smell, because they were too much into each other for that moment and forgot to stir. 

Yeonjun grabs Soobin’s hand with his and hugs his waist with his other hand, swinging him left to right clumsily in the limited area of the kitchen floor. 

_ Only you, can make all this world seem right _ _   
_ _ Only you can make the darkness bright _ _   
_ _ Only you, and you alone _ _   
_ _ Can thrill me like you do _ _   
_ _ And fill my heart with love for only you. _

  
  
  


The sky slowly darkens. Three minutes ago the clock showed seven, and the impatience of the boys grows stronger and stronger each second.

Soobin looks at the stove from above Yeonjun’s shoulder. “How long?” he whines, which makes Yeonjun turn his head to face him and smile. Soobin rests his chin on Yeonjun’s shoulder and watches the circling motions of the wooden spoon in Yeonjun’s hand. 

“Not long. Be patient, Binnie,” he answers.

That moment felt like the time froze.

  
  


Soobin and Yeonjun share a brief eye contact, before Yeonjun’s eyes travel down and back up. The taller can feel the heat of Yeonjun’s body and smell his cologne overpowering the mixture of scents from the kitchen. 

He panics for a second, not knowing if the look Yeonjun just gave him was out of annoyance that Soobin invaded his personal space. But then again, Yeonjun invades Soobin’s personal space all the time and neither of them mind. But Yeonjun doesn’t look  _ annoyed,  _ frankly it’s quite difficult to decipher what emotion he looks. He’s not saying anything and his expression isn’t changing, and the fact that Soobin can’t figure it out is giving him hell. 

He realizes he’s still digging his chin into Yeonjun’s shoulder.

He backs away immediately, watching Yeonjun’s face to see his reaction. But once again, there’s none, only the remnants of the smile he gave him earlier. Embarrassed, Soobin feels his cheeks getting red and he turns around so that the other one doesn’t see. “I..’ll wash the dishes in the meantime,” he utters with the intention of hiding how flustered he got. 

  
  


Thoughts like  _ what just happened  _ run through his mind as he’s pouring hot water into a pot to clean it. Painfully aware of Yeonjun’s presence not far from him, he can’t seem to stop replaying the scene in his head.  _ Nothing happened. Nothing unusual. _

_ Then why am I so bothered by it? _

The heat in his cheeks is not going away.

_ Why is Yeonjun not bothered by it? _

  
  


The moment one song stops and another is about to begin feels like the time freezes again. The soft instruments carried the background of their cooking session the entire evening, now the silence feels suffocating. 

..

…

_ Love me tender, love me sweet _ _   
_ _ Never let me go _

Soobin sighs in frustration. Another slow song. The atmosphere of the evening would be different and much easier to handle if Yeonjun just played some EDM. Instead, he has to suffer through these gentle melodies and possibly Yeonjun’s attempts to dance with him again. 

He’s not really suffering, though. It’s just giving him a bit of a hard time. 

Luckily, Yeonjun doesn’t take his hand anymore and he doesn’t rest his palm on Soobin’s wrist to slow dance with him again. Soobin is trying his best to find something he could do, as standing around doing nothing but listening to Yeonjun’s content humming somehow feels like a difficult thing to do. 

After cleaning the entire kitchen, however, there’s nothing left to keep him busy, so the only thing he can do for now is to sit on the stool opposite Yeonjun and watch him do the magic of cooking. 

  
  


_ Love me tender, love me true _ _   
_ _ All my dreams fulfill _

_   
_ _ “For my darling, I love you _ _   
_ _ And I always will.” _

Yeonjun sings the last two lines and his lips form into a sweet smile when he looks at Soobin. 

“I like this song.” 

Soobin doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t.

“It’s almost ready. Can you pass me the plates?” 

“Oh, sure,” Soobin says as he jumps off the stool fast like there was a time limit. He hurries over to the other side of the counter and takes out two white plates, carefully passing them to Yeonjun. 

“Thank you,” the older breathes out and takes them without looking at Soobin or his hands holding them. 

Soobin nervously shifts his weight from one foot to the other and while avoiding eye contact, he stops Yeonjun from serving the food. “Hyung, before we eat.. there’s something..” 

He turns around and runs to his suitcase. After a few seconds, he pulls out a small blue box and slowly walks back to his confused friend. 

He scratches his ear, still avoiding eye contact. 

“I bought this and wanted to give it to you on the day of your birthday. I don’t want to lie to you and make excuses.. but truthfully, I forgot, and I feel terrible about it.” 

He’s playing with the box in his hands and turning it left to right, trying to keep his hands occupied. 

“If you want to be angry, I’ll understand. But, I wanted to make you happy, not disappointed.” 

He finally looks Yeonjun in the eyes and sees that he still looks confused. He tries not to analyze his expression too much, though, and passes him the box. 

Yeonjun takes it and doesn’t thank him afterwards. Not because he’s ungrateful, but because he’s out of words. 

He slowly opens the box, and keeps looking into it for a few seconds before taking the silver necklace out. 

The one with the amber sun. The one Soobin bought as a present for him and didn’t give it to him when he should have.

After taking the necklace out and looking at it in his hands for a couple more seconds, he closes his eyes and clenches it tightly. 

He puts the blue box on the counter and looks Soobin in the eyes.

Soobin doesn’t know what to expect.

“You..” he starts quietly. “you bought this who knows when with the plan of giving it to me as a birthday present.” His voice gradually grows louder, but also more and more gentle. “But, you’ve already given me one. You took me to Europe, even though a birthday wish from you would be more than enough. How can I be angry or disappointed, when you’ve given me so much?” 

The room feels like it’s grown quiet.

“Not just for my birthday. From the day I met you, you’ve given me so much.” 

Soobin feels like he forgot how to speak. He wants to respond, but no words are coming out. 

He just lets himself be pulled closer to the man standing in front of him. He lets him put his hands around him and he lets his face be buried in his neck.

“I can’t get angry. I can’t.” 

He closes his eyes. Yeonjun can most likely feel his heartbeat, because he’s too close even for a hug, but it’s okay, because it’s Yeonjun. It’s always okay if it’s Yeonjun. He’s figured out that much, but he hasn’t figured out why.

Does he even need to figure it out? Does he want to? 

Things are good the way they are. 

  
  


They eat the dinner in silence. It’s not something usual for them, they always find a topic- this time though, neither of them start. Soobin utters a shy “it tastes good, hyung,” to which Yeonjun responds with a nod, but otherwise no words roll down their tongues. 

After they’re finished eating, Soobin is the one to wash the dishes again. In the meantime, Yeonjun announces that he will be taking a quick shower before bed, though it ends up being a lot longer than expected. Soobin manages to get the kitchen to its original state, he’s changed clothes, lied down on the bed and clicked  _ shuffle _ to listen to some of his favourite music. 

Impatient for Yeonjun to leave the bathroom so that Soobin can clean his teeth, his mind wanders to the memories of today. He’s working his way back- first, he thinks about the tender moment they shared. How Yeonjun hugged him and how he could feel his hot breath on his skin- and how he didn’t want to let go of this moment. How they danced around to unfittingly romantic songs. How him and Jimin walked the streets of London while having a conversation he’d be afraid to have with someone else. 

He thinks about how Jimin recommended him a song-  _ Sweet Night by V. _

He searches for the song and clicks  _ play. _

  
  
  


Focusing on the lyrics is difficult.

It’s difficult, because Soobin is afraid of finding things he doesn’t want to find. Because he knows what word follows, when other one ends. 

_ How could I know _ _   
_ _ One day I'd wake up feeling more _

Because maybe those words may apply to him. Maybe he’ll be able to relate to them for the first time. 

_ Are you my best friend _ _   
_ _ Feels like a river's rushing through my mind _ _   
_ _ I wanna ask you _ _   
_ _ If this is all just in my head _

Because what if he finds himself in the middle of a song that he doesn’t want to be in?

_ And would it be alright if I _ _   
_ _ Pulled you closer _

  
  


Yeonjun opens the door. 

He stops for a second when he notices Soobin staring. His eyes are open wide and his lips are slightly parted. He’s staring, because Yeonjun is beautiful.

Even without makeup. Even without all the fancy clothes he likes to wear. Even without his confident attitude that just adds to his charm. He’s beautiful the way he is.

_ “Or they always find them beautiful, no matter how they look, dressed up or with messy hair.” _

He finds him beautiful. He wants to spend time with him. He wants to look good for him. 

  
  


If there are two ships in the night, Yeonjun is the other. 

  
  


Soobin turns his gaze to his phone, pretending not to watch Yeonjun in the corner of his eye.

Yeonjun smirks and shakes his head. “Am I transparent? You looked at me like you saw a ghost.” He sits next to Soobin, takes his phone and starts scrolling through his social media.

Soobin’s cheeks heat up. He stands up and hurries to the bathroom. “No, hyung. I’m just.. tired,” he says on his way to the other room. 

He shuts the door behind him and leans against the sink. His reflection is staring right back at him, but it feels like it’s entirely new Soobin. One that he doesn’t know.. or maybe he’s known him for some time, he just doesn’t recognize him. 

How long was it since his feelings for Yeonjun grew from platonic to romantic? Was it during the trip? Or was it months, or even years ago? He couldn’t tell. But it’s not like it matters. 

He likes him  _ now. _

There’s no excuses, no ifs or buts. He likes Yeonjun. He likes him a bit more than he should, not as a friend. 

Actually, his feelings for him as a friend did not disappear. They did not get overwritten by his romantic feelings. That’s just a natural addition. 

Natural, because why would he _not_ find Yeonjun beautiful no matter what? Why would he _not_ want to spend his time with him and try to look pretty for him? Why is it such a distant concept? 

It’s so easy to like Yeonjun. It’s so easy to  _ love  _ him. 

He has the answer. He’s  _ loved _ him since forever. The desire to touch him a bit more, to be unapologetically flirted with, to  _ kiss him- _ that’s new. 

  
  


But Soobin has loved Yeonjun since forever.


	4. Chapter Four

“As you probably know, we’re leaving England today, so you might want to start packing up.” 

Yeonjun’s piercing voice brings Soobin back to reality.

He woke up about twenty minutes ago, but proceeded to cover his eyes with his arm afterwards. During the time he was not thinking about anything, barely chilling in bed; now he’s thinking about the fact that if he doesn’t move right now, he will make the entire crew wait, which is the last thing he’d want to do.

As Yeonjun said, it’s the last day of England. The plan for the day is: some leftover activities in London and a short flight to Edinburgh later, where they’ll be spending the last days of the trip. It feels bittersweet- Soobin can’t wait to fly to another place, but once they do, there won’t be much time left. 

He misses home and he misses everyone who is waiting for them, but doesn’t want the trip to end just yet. 

He hops into the shower to quickly freshen up and to wash away the sweat of yesterday, both literal and figurative. There’s no time for deep shower thoughts, so he shoos them away as soon as they creep in.    
He takes about six minutes in the shower and additional ten minutes to smack some beauty products on his face, including a soft pink blush that feels appropriate. If his cheeks are to heat up often today, he might as well blame it on artificial colour and get away with it. 

  
  


“I’ll use the bathroom real quick and then we can go,” Yeonjun says after packing his suitcase but leaving it open. When he closes the door behind him, Soobin looks at the pile of clothes inside. 

He notices the yellow notebook lying on top. 

He picks it up and runs his eyes over the words inside. It looks like Yeonjun worked on their song a bit more by himself, there are some parts that Soobin doesn’t recognize. 

He left the parts that they had worked on together untouched, what has changed is a bottom right corner that was previously blank. 

_ He continued the song lyrics,  _ Soobin thinks, as he’s reading through the new verse. The topic the song follows is still the same and the entire song is in korean. Except..

‘In the midst of everything,  _ I might have’ _

  
  


Soobin stares at the sentence, confused as to why it’s not finished. He turns the page, but the next one is blank. Much like the  _ next  _ next one and each one after. 

_ I might have..? _ He might have what? He rereads the lyrics again to maybe find out what Yeonjun might have had in mind, but he can’t think of anything. 

He just now realizes that while the words they worked on together were talking to people, MOA, the last part seems a lot more personal. 

As if Yeonjun was talking to himself.

  
  


Soobin closes the notebook and places it back into Yeonjun’s suitcase. He tries not to seem too suspicious when Yeonjun leaves the bathroom- he originally didn’t feel like he was breaching the older’s privacy, after all the notebook contained  _ their  _ song, but now.. 

He has a feeling like he maybe shouldn’t have. 

  
  
  


“I heard it’s really pretty inside.”

Soobin looks at the other three guys as he’s describing what he read about Sea Life, an aquarium in central London. “Apparently they don’t just use the animals for commercial purposes, but also take care of them and help them breed.” 

“Ah, that’s amazing,” Yeonjun responds, impressed. He nods contently as he’s walking inside the building and admiring the surroundings. 

The temperature inside makes Soobin a bit uncomfortable. In the morning he put on warm clothes, seeing how the trees were dancing side to side when he looked out of the window. Now, when the wind is gone, he feels hot, and he isn’t the only one- Yeonjun rolls up the sleeves of his black hoodie that he paired up with his black and white houndstooth trousers, a combination that only he could pull off. 

He realizes he’s admiring him a bit too much right now, but thankfully no one seems to have noticed. 

  
  


_ It feels magical, _ Soobin thinks, when the four enter the first room. The blue tint the room is bathing in makes him feel like he’s truly just swimming freely somewhere in the far ocean. 

“Ah, I wish we could take photos here,” he says in pout. 

“You can, you just can’t use the flashlight,” Yeonjun responds and pats Soobin on his back.

“Really?!” The younger lights up with joy. He quickly takes out his phone and captures everything, including his older friend. 

Yeonjun’s eyes disappear in the wide smile and the peace sign he does makes Soobin giggle.

God, he’s so smitten. 

He walks around imagining how it would feel to hold Yeonjun’s hand at that moment. He’s imagined aquarium dates before, just never with his bandmate. He’s still not quite sure what to do with his new discovery of his crush. It’ll probably hurt and not end well, but he decides not to think about negative emotions and just focuses on the present. 

Present, where Yeonjun is walking around looking the way he does, and giving Soobin butterflies every time he points at all the sharks and stingrays and smiles. If only he knew what he was doing, giving the younger such a hard time. 

It might have ended catastrophically, if Soobin pinned Yeonjun against a wall somewhere along the tour of the aquarium and demanded him to kiss the life out of the leader, but he didn’t, although it was a fantasy he wouldn’t mind. 

The next stop is half an hour of romantic tension in a cabin of the London Eye. 

Soobin thinks about the wheel they were on the first day they arrived in London. Thankfully there’s more people than just the two of them now, which is helping to keep Soobin’s mind distracted from the thoughts of kissing Yeonjun on the top of a ferris attraction. 

One would call it a missed opportunity, others would argue that Soobin’s life was just kept safe, nevertheless the kiss didn’t come and the boys step out of the cabin, satisfied with the view the attraction offered. 

  
  
  


After going back to the hotel to pick up their luggage, the four reluctantly wave their last goodbye to the country of England. 

The plane they get on is similar to the one they came to England with, except now all four of the boys sit in one row. Soobin lets Yeonjun sit by the window this time, acting like it’s his generous heart letting him, when in fact he just wants to look at Yeonjun with the excuse of looking in the direction of the plane window. 

Compared to the flight from Korea, this one feels quite short. Similarly, the taxi drive to their hotel also does. 

The hotel has four floors, the boys will be sleeping on the second. They open the door and a bright red greets them- red curtains, red beddings, red tablecloths on the coffee table. All with the lining of the colour of gold, giving it something of a royal breath. 

Both beds have the same beddings. It's what Soobin notices even before realizing there are now two beds and no need to share.

They step in and Yeonjun immediately claims the bed further from the entrance door. 

“I can’t believe we’re in Scotland,” he says and sighs. “We haven’t even had a proper tour around and I already like it here.” 

Soobin nods. “The architecture is amazing.” 

He lies on his bed and takes out his phone. After silently counting in his head, he finds out it’s around midnight in South Korea and decides to open the TXT groupchat, assuming that if no one, at least Taehyun will be online, because that boy has to see the sun rise before he decides it’s time for bed. 

He sends a picture of Edinburgh he took on the way to the hotel. Taehyun replies immediately.

**Taehyun**

Wow that looks pretty

Are you in Scotland already?

**Yeonjun**

We just arrived, we’re in the hotel room

He sends a picture of Soobin on his bed, unaware of Yeonjun taking it. 

**Taehyun**

What are the plans?

**Soobin**

Walk around the city today, then a music festival tomorrow and on the last day we’re going to Loch Lomond and then flying back home

ㅠㅠ

**Hueningkai**

We miss you!!! Come back already!!!!

But also don’t

Enjoy your time while you’re there

**Taehyun**

Right

Because there will be a lot of work once you come back

**Yeonjun**

Thx for reminding

**Soobin**

We miss you too

**Yeonjun**

Beomgyu?

**Taehyun**

He’s sleeping

We just came back from work and he’s already gone

**Hueningkai**

Today was an exhausting day I’m not surprised he’s tired

….no hyung you’re not allowed to feel guilty

  
  


There was no need to specify which hyung he was referring to, everyone knew it was about Soobin. They know him so well, he doesn’t even need to move and they’d already know what he’s feeling. It was true, reading about how tiring it was for the other members and him not being there, a bit of guilt started building up in him. Luckily, he had his members to reassure him that he’s allowed to have a bit of a break, especially as a leader that normally gets so much more work to do. 

**Hueningkai**

We’re okay over here, honestly it’s a so freeing that I don’t get to be scolded by Yeonjun hyung during dance practices

We don’t want you here

(You know we do)

But we don’t!!!!!!!!

Don’t come back just yet!!!

  
  


Kai’s desperate attempts to cheer Soobin up make him quietly giggle. It’s so  _ him,  _ always making sure the other members are happy. He can’t help but miss all of them so much. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says softly. “He’s right. Well, it feels wrong saying it since I’m here too, but we deserve a vacation.” He smiles and scratches the back of his head. “And I’ll make sure to get the kids some vacation too once we get back.” 

Soobin shoots a gentle smile right back at him. “Yeah. Thank you.” 

Yeonjun nods. 

**Taehyun**

Kai’s right

Don’t think about us you do that already when you’re here

Cause you can’t help it cause you love us too much

  
  


Taehyun, always so smart. 

  
  


**Yeonjun**

We’ll have to go soon

Taehyunie, take care of the others and of yourself too

**Taehyun**

Yes dad

You too

Yeonjun smiles to himself. It’s apparent, nothing can make him happier than the rest of the boys. 

  
  
  


After a bit of rest, the four boys get going on an adventure in the new city. Firstly, they enter a restaurant that isn’t too fancy or too cheap, then they visit a pub not even wanting to order anything, but the interior was so well decorated they just had to step in. It had dark walls covered in mirrors and images that weren’t mirrors but reflected everything anyway, and it smelled like lentil soup inside- which was that day’s menu, but unfortunately the boys were already full. 

Then, they take a proper look at the Edinburgh Castle, both from outside and inside and unwillingly leave the hill it stands on two hours later to explore the other parts of the capital. 

Before they even know it, the sun sets and the city lits up with neon lights, cafés and bars. As they’re walking along the old dark-stoned buildings, Jungkook exclaims in a low tone trying to make himself sound older, “I think we should head back to the hotel with our TXT boys. And then we can go take a look at some more bars for a bit.” He’s looking at Jimin as he’s proposing the idea. 

“Or,” Yeonjun chimes in, “we can go together, all four of us.” 

Jimin gives Yeonjun a responsible look accompanied by a smile. “Or, we do as Jungkookie said and the two of you will go take a rest in the hotel.” 

“Come on, when will be the next time to have a glass of beer with me and Binnie? Huh, JK hyung?” He says, trying to pout as much as possible. 

Soobin looks at him immediately, confused by the use of ‘hyung’, as well as him calling him JK. Jimin does as well, with his eyebrows rising up, but it’s just the look of surprise, the  _ oh? _ kind. 

“What happened while we were shopping with Soobin?” Jimin asks playfully. “Jungkookie, don’t give in. You’re strong enough to resist.” 

Jungkook gives Jimin an unsure smile. “It’s.. not like we’ll sit right opposite the bartender and order shot after shot.” 

Jimin punches Jungkook in his shoulder. “What would their parents think if they knew we took them to a  _ bar? _ ” Even though he’s trying to sound strict, there’s still playfulness in his voice. 

Soobin is not saying anything, just following the exchange the three are having. He’s not even sure what he wants- he’s not opposed to the idea, but he’s not thrilled to go either. 

He’ll take whatever the three settle on. 

“My parents are not here,” Yeonjun says proudly, “and both of us are adults. We’ve been to a bar before.” 

Jungkook glances at Jimin, trying to see his reaction. It was quite easy to persuade  _ him _ , now all that’s left is to get rid of Jimin’s responsible initiative he took at the beginning of the trip, at least for this evening. 

They walk for a while in silence. Yeonjun is almost not breathing, waiting for Jimin’s response. They stop after passing by one bar when Jimin looks behind him to peek inside. 

He sighs. “Alright, but beer only.” 

Yeonjun throws his wide grin at each of the three. He puts his arm around Soobin’s shoulders and whispers in his ear. “That wasn’t even that difficult.” Soobin turns his head in Yeonjun’s direction, staring right into his eyes. 

He turns the other way after Yeonjun winks at him, making him blush. 

  
  


The bar is busy and there’s loud music playing. It looks cozy, though, especially the room in the back the waiter takes them to. 

They sit down on a couch in the corner of the room. Soobin looks at the group of people sitting around another table, the only other table besides theirs in the room. They don’t seem to care about anything but themselves and their alcohol- thank god, they don’t know BTS or TXT, therefore the boys will have enough privacy. 

  
  


“What’s the cheapest beer they have?” Jungkook asks, taking the menu on the table. “I want to order both the cheapest and the most expensive.” 

Soobin takes the menu too and runs eyes over the drinks they offer. Yeonjun moves closer to him and Soobin adjusts the piece of paper so that they both can see. 

He ends up not choosing anything, instead, he’ll just drink what the others order for him. 

  
  
  


“Should we start with the youngest?” 

Soobin scans the large table in front of him. There are seven glasses, each different, but he has no idea which beer is which and how they taste like. He gives Yeonjun an unsure look but the older is just grinning and not saying anything.

“Choose whichever you like,” says Jungkook, excited to see Soobin’s pick and his first impression of it.

Soobin chooses the glass closest to him. He glances at Yeonjun one last time to see if his expression has changed, maybe to alert him that his pick wasn’t the luckiest- but frankly, he didn’t know if Yeonjun had any more idea about the beverages than he had. His expression was unreadable and he still had that endearingly stupid smile on his face. 

Soobin takes a sip of the drink. He doesn’t react at first- until the incredibly bitter taste finally arrives. 

He grimaces and puts the glass back to where he took it from. All three laugh at his reaction, Soobin joins them shortly. 

“My turn then,” says Yeonjun, as he’s taking the first glass. He drinks without hesitation and nods afterwards. 

“Yup, it was good.” 

“You chose the expensive one,” Jungkook giggles.

“I figured the waiter would put it down first,” Yeonjun responds with confidence colouring his voice. Soobin gets mad at himself for not thinking of that strategy too. 

  
  


The evening flows slowly but surely. With each sip of the beer (different glass this time) Soobin takes, he can feel himself getting more and more drunk. So is Yeonjun, Soobin can tell, because he’s touchy when he’s drunk, and he’s certainly touchy now. Not that the younger minds. He happily accepts his arm around his shoulders, or him playing with Soobin’s sleeve, or touching his ear like he always does. Sometimes those actions seem conscious, other times not- like when he is in a deep conversation with the older two, but his hands give their full attention to Soobin, without Yeonjun even realizing it. 

Soobin grew comfortable to those touches a long time ago, but never did they give him such a hard time like now. Nevertheless, he tries to push that aside and take advantage of the easy going atmosphere orbiting the table. 

“Hyung,” he starts, looking Yeonjun in the eyes. The older turns to face him and nods to show he’s listening. 

“The yellow notebook..” he says, uncertain how to continue. “Is that still  _ our _ project?” 

“Of course,” he responds and furrows his brows. 

“Then.. I can freely write into it, when I want.” It was a question, but said in a tone of a statement, therefore Yeonjun didn’t move to oppose. He’s keeping his face concentrated and expecting Soobin to continue. 

He doesn’t, though, because he doesn’t know how. 

There’s something bothering him about how Yeonjun wrote the last part. It doesn’t seem to fit the song, but Yeonjun is a skilled writer- he’s written many lyrics especially in their trainee days- so he knows what he’s doing. There must be a reason as to why he wrote it the way he did. 

But Soobin doesn’t know how to ask.

“Okay.” 

Yeonjun nods again, assuming the short exchange is over. 

They leave the topic for the night.

  
  


Soobin lies down on his bed exhausted as soon as they come back to their hotel room. “I already feel a headache incoming,” he says. Yeonjun laughs, as he’s taking a toothbrush out of his suitcase. He heads towards the bathroom, saying, “It’ll be okay if you just get a good night's sleep. My presence will also heal you.” Soobin snorts at the confident second statement. 

“Your presence will just amplify it,” he jokes. 

They both get ready for bed. Soobin wraps himself in a blanket (it’s cold in the room because of the open window) and looks at Yeonjun, sitting on his own bed, who doesn’t look like he wants to lie down just yet. They’re sharing a silent eye contact for a short moment before Yeonjun speaks quietly. 

“Soobin.. I’m kind of already used to one bed, can I sleep on yours?” 

Soobin doesn’t respond right away. He’s not sure if the reasoning is the alcohol and how touchy it makes him- he must have sobered up by the time they arrived at the hotel. He wants to ask  _ why _ but Yeonjun would probably just repeat that he’s used to sleeping on one bed. 

“Sure,” he finally responds. 

Yeonjun turns off all the lights and crawls into Soobin’s bed without saying a word. He leaves a decent distance between them, probably because the younger is facing his direction and refusing to turn around as he’s already in a comfortable position. If it was his back facing him, Yeonjun would probably do what he did the previous nights- scoot closer and take the role of the  _ big spoon, _ as he called it that time. 

But he’s not doing it this time, because doing so facing each other feels  _ a lot more intimate. _

Maybe that’s why Soobin wouldn’t mind, and is the one to move closer first, signaling the older to do the same. 

He does. 

He puts his arm around Soobin’s waist and pulls him closer. 

_ If anyone saw them like this, there would be many raised brows and many questions. _

Soobin rests his head against Yeonjun’s chest. The inconvenient position of Yeonjun’s collarbone is making it a bit uncomfortable, but Soobin doesn’t mind, because his head is full of other things to keep him awake. 

Yet, Yeonjun’s soft inhales and exhales and his calm heartbeat are enough to end Soobin’s day. 

_ Only two more nights like this. _

  
  
  
  


The leader wakes up unusually early the next morning.

It’s five, as he’s learned once he carefully took his phone from the bedside table. Yeonjun is still holding him close, but not close enough that Soobin’s long arms wouldn’t reach his phone he last evening thankfully left at the edge of the table. 

  
  


He tries to fall back asleep, but he can’t. His stomach hurts- not too much, but enough to make him uncomfortable and unable to sleep. 

As he has nothing much to do, he decides to check Weverse and Twitter.

There’s a new selca from Hyuka, he notices. 

_ Everyone, how are you doing? I’m working hard, but the change of weather is making me a bit sleepy haha. It’s getting cold, don’t get sick, okay? _

He likes the post with their official account, probably sending MOAs into confusion, but it’s okay. 

On Weverse, he reads the spam of comments Taehyun left there like he sometimes does in the ungodly morning hours. He smiles reading through and leaves without posting or commenting anything himself. 

A little over an hour passes, and Soobin’s stomach ache is only getting worse. He wants to go to the bathroom, but worried that he’ll wake Yeonjun up, he doesn’t. 

  
  


At seven, both of their alarms ring.

With his phone in his hands, Soobin turns off his alarm the second it goes off. He checks if Yeonjun is awake, although there’s no way he wouldn’t be, and finally walks into the bathroom. When he walks out, he sees Yeonjun looking at him with a concerned look on his face.

“You look..” he stops, looking for words. “Is there something wrong?” He knows him too well.

Soobin wants to lie, say that he’s okay, but he knows that that might cause even more trouble. 

“I’m- it’s probably a hangover. I’ll be fine, eventually.”

He frowns. “Are you in pain? We should take you to the doctor-”

“I’ll be fine, hyung, really.” 

Yeonjun doesn’t seem convinced. “At least we should get you some painkillers. I’ll ask sunbaenims if they have any.” 

“No, please, don’t.. Don’t make them worry. I’ll be okay, I promise.” 

Yeonjun sighs. He nods finally and as he’s starting to get ready, the taller suddenly stands up and rushes into the bathroom again. Immediately followed by Yeonjun, Soobin gets embarrassed when he rubs his back and has to watch him vomit. 

“I don’t think  _ you’ll be okay, _ ” Yeonjun imitates him. He’s trying to make himself sound mad, but his voice reveals just how worried he is. He brings him a glass of water and goes back to gently rubbing his back as he watches Soobin drink. 

“I’ll send a message to sunbaenims.” 

Soobin wants to protest, but it would be of no use, so he just remains silent. 

Yeonjun sits on the edge of the bathtub, typing fast and occasionally checking on Soobin sitting on the floor next to the toilet. 

“They will think it’s their fault. For taking us into the bar..” Soobin mumbles to himself. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s not just a hangover. You wouldn’t vomit from the little amount of beer you had.”

The previous evening flashes in front of Soobin’s eyes. He suddenly remembers that it was Yeonjun who proposed the idea of all four of them going- meaning he must feel guilty, but he’s trying to hide it, and he might actually think that Soobin is feeling sick indeed because of the alcohol.

“You’re right. It’s not because of that.” 

  
  


It took five minutes before they heard Jimin and Jungkook knocking the door. Yeonjun opens it and lets the two worried faces enter their room. 

“How are you feeling? Should we visit a doctor?” Jimin asks, taking a seat next to Soobin on his bed. 

“No, there’s no need, really,” he responds, and looks at Yeonjun sitting on his own bed. His face reddens when he realizes Yeonjun’s bed is made, aside from a few wrinkles from Yeonjun sitting on it. He hopes the two seniors won’t notice. 

“Then at least we can get you some pills. Jungkookie, google the nearest pharmacy.” 

Jungkook nods and takes his phone out of his pocket.

“No, please, don’t worry about me,” Soobin says, desperate for them to listen to him. “You don’t have to take me anywhere, or go to the pharmacy. I’d be the happiest if you just go to the festival.”

“Not happening,” Jimin responds. “We won’t leave you here.”

“Please, do. It’s your trip that you planned months in advance. I don’t want to be the reason your plans get ruined..” 

He gives Jimin and Jungkook puppy eyes and expects another refusal, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Jimin exchanges a look with Jungkook and deeply exhales. 

“Please, go,” Soobin says, determinedly. “All three of you.”

“No.” 

Yeonjun’s crossed arms and stern look appear only so often, but when they do, his powerful presence makes everyone unwilling to argue with him. 

“You should definitely go,” he says as he looks at the older two, “Soobin should rest. I will take care of him.” 

Soobin hopes Jimin will dispute, but after a lot of convincing, he instead agrees. 

“Okay. We’ll be in touch. Yeonjun, call us every hour or so about how Soobin is feeling. If he gets worse immediately let us know, alright? Or if he gets better. You can still arrive, even if it’s a little later.” 

“Understood,” Yeonjun responds. 

To hell with Yeonjun and his caring ass. Now he’ll be stuck in a hotel room the entire day, instead of properly enjoying his birthday present. 

  
  


“What are you gonna do, watch me sleep?” Soobin asks after Jimin and Jungkook leave and Yeonjun closes the door behind them.

A smirk forms on the older’s lips. “It’s fine. I’d rather watch you sleep than awake in pain.” Soobin fights the urge to throw a pillow at him. 

“Don’t give me such an angry look. Don’t you want me here?”

Of course he does.

“Of course I do.” 

“Great. We can watch some movies or something. Romantic, isn’t it?” He sends him a flying kiss. 

“I feel like vomiting again.” 

Yeonjun laughs. “Are you hungry? I can get you something from the grocery store.” 

Soobin watches him get ready. How he’s taking jeans, a T-shirt and a grey hoodie and throwing them on the bed for later, how he’s playing with the amber necklace Soobin gave him while he’s searching for the closest grocery store on his phone. Soobin closes his eyes when Yeonjun comes closer and puts his hand on his forehead to check his temperature. 

  
  


“I’ll be going. It might take about thirty minutes, but I’ll try to be as fast as I can.” 

“Okay.” 

“Call me if anything happens.”

“Alright.” 

Yeonjun opens his mouth to speak but decides not to. He watches Soobin for a short while before nodding and smiling tenderly. “Take care.”

Soobin’s not the one to go out alone in a foreign city. “You too, hyung.” 

They exchange the last smiles before Yeonjun leaves the room. Suddenly, the silence feels saddening. 

Soobin exhales and slides down the bed. His stomach still hurts, on top of it his muscles add to the pain as he’s feeling weak and unable to move. He stays like that, unmoving for a whole 30 seconds before he gets bored, so instead he somehow tragically walks in pain into the bathroom for no reason in particular. 

He stares at himself in the mirror. His messy and sweaty hair is at places stuck to his forehead. He remembers Yeonjun’s hand checking his temperature and gives himself an angry look.

_ Now’s not the right time to get horny, Soobin.  _

He walks back into the bedroom and lies down on his bed. 

_ Red is a strong colour. It symbolizes anger, but also love and passion.  _ They learned about it in school at some point, and now he can’t stop thinking about it, because there’s red everywhere he looks. 

Passion and desire..

How would Yeonjun’s hand feel on his torso, tracing down to his thighs, bare and w-

_ Soobin contain yourself.  _

He huffs at his own thoughts and shuts his eyes, trying to prevent his imagination from getting wild. Maybe he’ll even fall asleep. He can try at least.

That’s about where it gets- an attempt. Yeonjun comes back with a bag full of dry food that hopefully won’t irritate Soobin’s stomach. “Did you sleep?” He asks first when he notices that the younger is awake. 

“No,” he responds, not lying. 

“Are you feeling better?” 

“No.” 

“You got worse because I was gone.” 

“I will punch you.” 

“Why did you buy so much food?” Soobin asks and gathers all of his energy to sit straight. “I imagine the bag was heavy.” 

“Not as heavy as the burden of watching you hungry,” Yeonjun says and smiles charmingly. 

“What’s gotten into you? Seriously..” 

Yeonjun just laughs.

“Here, I bought you some cookies. They’re supposed to be eaten with black tea, but.. we don’t have any tea, so..”

“I’m good.” 

He passes him what he considers appropriate and leaves the fruits for later.

“So. Movies?” Yeonjun asks while sitting on Soobin’s bed next to him and making himself comfortable. “The wifi should be stable. I hope.”

“I don’t remember the last time I watched a movie on a phone screen,” Soobin teases. 

“I know, I should’ve brought my laptop. But I know I’d end up working if i did.. which I ended up doing anyway.” He giggles. Soobin remembers the yellow notebook. 

“It’s okay. As long as we’re entertained.” 

Yeonjun starts scrolling through a selection of movies he finds on the home page. “A romcom?” 

Soobin hums. He’s not the biggest fan of the genre, but he knows that Yeonjun loves it. 

“I’ve wanted to watch this one for a long time.” They move closer to each other so that they can both see. Soobin rests his head on Yeonjun’s chest again like the night before and closes his eyes trying to fall asleep. 

From time to time his eyes open just so that he can slowly eat the food Yeonjun bought, but before finishing the bag, he manages to grow weary enough to doze off for a couple of hours. 

  
  


When he wakes up, he finds himself clinging to Yeonjun, who doesn’t seem to mind. He notices Soobin being awake and smiles. He puts down his phone and moves Soobin’s bangs from covering his eyes. 

“ _ Now,  _ are you feeling better?” He asks gently. 

Soobin wants to smile and act like he is, but Yeonjun would soon figure it out anyway. 

“I..” he stops and sharply inhales, making Yeonjun flinch in surprise. “Stomach cramps.” 

Yeonjun’s expression grows softer when he caresses Soobin’s hair. 

“I’ll run you a bath.” 

  
  


It feels like forever until the bathtub is filled with enough water to make Yeonjun come help Soobin into the bathroom. 

“Don’t rush,” he says, when he sees how much standing up causes Soobin pain. 

They walk into the bathroom slowly, and Soobin immediately rests against the bathtub. Yeonjun turns around to walk out, but looks at Soobin before he actually leaves the room. “You can deal with your clothes, right? Unless..” 

“I’m fine,” Soobin reassures him. Yeonjun nods and leaves. 

He spends twenty minutes relaxing in the hot water and is interrupted only once by a knock on the door and a worried “you good?” 

“Yes, hyung,” he responds and closes his eyes. 

There’s a pile of fresh clothes Yeonjun prepared for him- black sweatpants, a white tee and a pair of boxer briefs he had to take from the bag with the rest of Soobin’s underwear, an image in his head which makes his cheeks blush a bit. He puts on his clothes and makes his way into the bedroom. 

He finds Yeonjun on his phone again (there’s not much more he could be doing). Yeonjun looks at him curiously, with his brows rising up. “Better?” 

Soobin lies down and covers himself with a blanket. “Yeah. Just a little cold.” He feels shivers down his spine. 

Yeonjun takes a blanket from the other bed and covers him with it, but truthfully, it doesn’t help much. 

  
  


The grey hoodie Yeonjun prepared for himself in the morning but didn’t wear is thrown over the footboard of Soobin’s bed. Soobin didn’t pay much attention to it until now, that he feels like standing in the fire wouldn’t be enough. 

He asks silently while avoiding eye contact, “Hyung, do you find sharing clothes comforting?” 

“Hm?” Yeonjun reacts. “I never really thought about it. Why?” 

Soobin doesn’t respond, instead just obviously stares at the hoodie in hopes that Yeonjun will get the message. 

He does. 

“Oh,” he says and reaches out to grab it. “Take it.” 

Soobin sits up. He’s about to take the hoodie from Yeonjun’s hands, but the older doesn’t move at first, and then adjusts it in his hands so that he can be the one to put it on Soobin. 

The taller cooperates. The interaction is a bit clumsy, and Yeonjun must sit closer to achieve his goal of properly clothing him. When he finishes, and Soobin ends up wordlessly sitting opposite him cutely with the hood on his head, the two stop for a moment and just stare at each other. 

Soobin feels dizzy. 

He notices the little scar above Yeonjun’s eye. It’s not the first time he’s noticed it, after all they’ve known each other for years. Never has he, however, felt such a need to touch it. This feels like a great opportunity, he thinks to himself, and gently runs his index finger over the line, making Yeonjun close his eyes. He opens them when Soobin is finished, but his hand is still beside Yeonjun’s face, and neither of them know why. 

He puts his hand down, but makes an effort to (very subtly) stroke Yeonjun’s cheek. 

Yeonjun should pull back, or at least flinch, but he doesn’t. 

Soobin watches where his hyung’s eyes travel. First they follow Soobin’s hand ending on his (Soobin’s) lap. Then they rise and stop for a while looking into his dark eyes. They share a silent eye contact again, before Yeonjun breaks it, eyelids lowering to what Soobin can only guess is.. his lips. 

The entire time, besides his gaze going up and down, Yeonjun hasn’t moved. He keeps breathing steadily and he has the same neutral expression on his face. Soobin would sell his soul to know what Yeonjun is thinking, and  _ if he was indeed looking at his lips,  _ like Soobin presumed. 

Butterflies fill his stomach. There’s no actual way he did, and if he did look at Soobin’s lips, surely there was no particular intention behind it. 

Was it Soobin’s imagination? He thought he saw Yeonjun move closer. 

He freezes, not knowing what to expect. 

Maybe Yeonjun did move closer, because now, he’-

  
  


_ Knock knock.  _ They jump back in surprise. 

Yeonjun shifts his gaze from Soobin to the door and takes a few seconds to come to his full senses and go open. He finds Jungkook, looking like a responsible older friend, that he after all is. 

He walks in and looks at Soobin worriedly. “How are you feeling?” He asks, to which Soobin hums. 

“Better.” 

“Are you alone?” Yeonjun is wondering. 

“We came back to check on you two and to bring something we forgot. Jimin hyung also came, he’s just. Using the bathroom at the moment.”

Soobin wants to say “oh” but no sound leaves his mouth, so the room gets silent for a short while, until Yeonjun speaks again.

“So you’re going back then?” 

Jungkook thinks about his answer. 

“Do you want to go, Soobin? Or you’d rather stay? In which case, we can stay here with you too, we can play some board games again-”

Soobin doesn’t like being impolite and interrupting someone’s speech, but he’s willing to this time. “It’s okay, you can go back, but I don't think I can do it.. I won’t get angry if you go, really.” 

Jungkook just sits on the edge of the bed and thinks. It looks like he doesn’t want to decide on anything without Jimin’s input. 

He arrives shortly, giving Soobin the same question as Jungkook did right away. Soobin repeats that he’s feeling better but not well enough to go. Yet again, it takes a fair amount of convincing for the two seniors to leave and go back to enjoying the music festival like planned. 

When they’re gone, another wave of fatigue takes over Soobin. 

Yeonjun is unmoving, standing between his and Soobin’s bed, and looking focused- like he’s  _ maybe  _ thinking about the same thing as the boy opposite him:  _ What was that before? _ Soobin goes red when he remembers how Yeonjun was just centimetres from him and even redder when he remembers how he thought Yeonjun was about to kiss him. But he wasn’t,  _ right? _ There’s no way he would. Yeonjun isn’t head over heels for Soobin, like it is vice versa. All the flirting he does, he does as fanservice for the cameras, or to tease Soobin, because it must be hilarious to see him get shy. 

So why didn’t he do anything this time? He could have blown him a kiss, or wink, or do  _ anything, _ to see Soobin flustered, but instead he just stayed still with the goddamn expression on his face that Soobin can’t decode. 

His train of thoughts stops when he hears Yeonjun’s voice coming from next to a table (he didn’t even notice he went there) as he’s taking an apple in his hand and shows it to Soobin. He hums in a tone that asks  _ do you want to eat?,  _ and Soobin shakes his head. 

_ So he’s back to normal and pretending like nothing happened.  _

“I think I’ll try to get some sleep again.” 

  
  


The rest of the day continued as normal- well, as normal as staying in a hotel room for the entire day can get. Soobin slept through most of it, which left him unable to fall asleep in the evening, so he was, in the middle of the night, left alone with his thoughts and Yeonjun sleeping by his side. 

He thought that after the events of the day he would rather sleep on his own bed, but it would seem like he was mistaken. 

  
  


He managed to fall back asleep at four, and was woken up by the alarm clock three hours later.

  
  
  
  


It was to be expected, but much to Soobin’s disappointment, the weather on their last day of the trip was terrible. 

He has looked up some pictures of the place they were visiting that day. Loch Lomond was a beautiful place to visit, but not nearly as beautiful when the sky is grey and the fog blocks anything outside a ten meter radius. 

Nonetheless, he was looking forward to it, and he was determined to enjoy the last day to the fullest. 

  
  


“Hey,” he heard Yeonjun’s raspy voice coming from the right side of the bed. “Are you better now?” 

“Yes, I think so.” He smiled slightly and watched Yeonjun’s lips curve upwards too. “I don’t know what happened yesterday. Maybe I ate something spoiled.. I’m sorry that we couldn’t go to the festival.” 

“No, Soobinie, stop blaming yourself. It’s not a big deal anyway, being with you for the day was enough fun on its own.” 

Soobin’s stomach did a mild 180 flip at those words. He couldn’t bring himself to formulate anything other than a shy ‘thank you’. 

  
  


To get to their destination, the four took a bus. Something about the constant sounds of the bus engine and the silent tapping of the rain on the windows created a calm and peaceful atmosphere, where Soobin felt comfortable to just lean against Yeonjun’s shoulder and listen to his breathing. He closed his eyes but hoped not to fall asleep; every minute of the day was precious to him. Yeonjun probably felt the same way- the entire bus ride he kept looking out of the window.

  
  


“Wow,” Soobin breathes once they walk out of a half-empty shopping centre in front of the destination, and he puts down his face mask. A stunning scenery lies in front of them- a tranquil lake, with water in a shade of silvery grey casted by the many clouds hovering above it. 

They walk closer and enjoy the view all together for a few seconds, until Jungkook breaks the monotonous sound of the rain. “I want to take a walk around there,” he says and points at a path in the distance. Him and Yeonjun exchange a glance. 

“I’d like to stay here a bit longer,” Yeonjun says. He looks at Soobin, who doesn’t know what to respond, so he confusedly looks at each of the three boys. None of them say anything for a short moment, so Soobin lowers his eyes and then looks around. “Alright, we can stay here for a bit and then we’ll catch up with you.” 

Jungkook nods and Soobin watches them as he and Jimin slowly walk away. He then peeks at Yeonjun, who was already looking at him. “There?” He asks. “Seems like no one’s at that place.” Soobin turns around to see where Yeonjun is looking.

“Mhm,” he hums and starts walking slowly with Yeonjun on his left side. 

  
  


There’s distant chatter and the sound of the rain and their footsteps. Yeonjun sometimes lowers his volume when he’s focused and it makes him difficult to hear. He speaks out, and Soobin has to concentrate on his deep voice well. 

“Soobin-ah..” he starts and thinks about what to say next. “I’ve said it before, but I can’t say it enough. Thank you, for the past few days, for helping me with our song, for the necklace..” he takes it from under his jacket, “and just.. for everything.”

Soobin glances at him. He was looking at the ground and playing with his umbrella’s handle. 

“There’s no need to thank me, hyung,” he says. A flock of birds fly over them, Soobin wonders why there are birds flying around in heavy rain. “I wanted to give you something special because you deserve it.” He puts his hand awkwardly in a pocket of his leather jacket.

“I was thinking for a long time,” he starts and stops, deciding if he should tell him or not, “but I just couldn’t find anything that was good enough. It was driving me crazy.”

Yeonjun laughs, making Soobin feel a bit embarrassed. “Am I that important to you?”

“Of course you are,” Soobin says with pouty lips. Yeonjun’s facial expression changes when he sees Soobin seem rather sad at his question. 

“I- I appreciate that. You’re important to me too.” 

Soobin feels his cheeks heating up again. 

They arrive at the place Yeonjun was talking about. Neither of them talks now, which makes Soobin overthink the present, the past, Yeonjun’s possible feelings he’s currently having and thoughts he may be thinking. He looks calm overlooking the lake, meanwhile Soobin is stepping foot to foot, not knowing if the silence between them is bothering only him or them both. 

In his mind he goes back to yesterday. He sees Yeonjun’s face closing the distance between them and feels the confusion it gave him. After all the thinking he did the previous night, he still couldn’t figure out if he’s just going crazy or if Yeonjun was  _ actually planning on.. kissing him.  _

There goes nothing, he thinks. He gathers all the courage he has and attempts to find out in the most subtle way.

  
  


“Hyung.. what do people do when they want to kiss someone?”

Yeonjun looks him in the eyes and makes him panic, thinking it was a stupid or badly formulated question. 

“I- I mean, like, what precedes the action? Do you like.. tell them ‘let’s kiss’, or..?” 

Yeonjun eyes him up and down. He thinks for a second, and Soobin grows red, because he realizes he basically just revealed to Yeonjun he hasn’t had his first kiss yet. 

“Are you asking out of curiosity? Or because you need advice?” 

_ Great, Soobin.  _ Now he either thinks Soobin has someone he likes, or.. that Yeonjun is the one he likes. He can’t decide which option is worse. 

“Ah- I-..,” he stutters, not knowing what to respond. “..don’t ask.” 

Yeonjun inhales deeply. “Well.. in a lot of movies, for example, the two just kind of get closer and closer until it happens. Like in the one we watched yesterday.” 

He wouldn’t know. He was asleep. 

“Then.. has it ever happened to  _ you _ ?” 

“Yeah.” 

Soobin felt his heart drop. He didn’t know why. It’s not like it mattered, as far as he knew, Yeonjun didn’t have anyone at the moment.  _ Guess it’s just the idea of someone kissing hyung, that breaks my heart. _

“...I see.” 

  
  


The raindrops were still falling and making piercing sounds on their umbrellas. Somehow, though, the sounds felt louder, and Soobin just wanted to walk away. 

The rain mirrored his feelings of melancholy that shouldn’t be there. He had mixed feelings. He was trying to do his best enjoying the last hours of Scotland, but his thoughts couldn’t help but wander in the words Yeonjun said. Maybe he shouldn’t blame himself, because he can’t control his emotions, but he does, and the thoughts are eating him away. He doesn’t know what to do. 

  
  


“Are you referring to yesterday?” 

Soobin’s heart drops the second time, but not from sadness- from surprise. He peeks at Yeonjun- he’s looking forward, straightened up, like he’s confident in what he’s saying- or trying to make himself confident. 

“Uh,” is all that leaves Soobin’s mouth. 

“The description feels similar, right? I moved closer, until the knock.” 

“You were getting closer?” Soobin asks, unsure.

“You didn’t notice?”

“I did.” 

“Then you would know the answer.” 

  
  


Soobin couldn’t decipher anything. Not Yeonjun’s words, not his expression, nothing. If he wasn’t as vague as he is, it would be a hundred times easier to ask. But now’s the right moment. If he doesn’t ask now, there won’t be a next time.

_ Yes or no. It’s easy. Just ask.  _

“Were you going to kiss me?” 

  
  


He regrets the second he asks. Yeonjun doesn’t move, flinch, or react in any similar way to his question, which makes Soobin nervous wanting to take back the last few seconds and never ask. 

Yeonjun finally turns to face him.

“No,” he says. “Maybe.” 

Soobin furrows his brows. “What? Hyung, what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means,” Yeonjun says a bit louder than how he spoke before, “that I don’t know how you feel about me and I don’t know if I’m confident enough to do the first move.” 

Yeonjun’s words spike right through Soobin’s stomach, and if there were any butterflies before, they can’t compare to the mayhem that’s there now. 

He stays silent with eyes wide and the world feels like it stopped. It’s maybe his imagination, or just the cold wind, but Yeonjun’s cheeks, nose and ears seem redder than normally. 

He gets lost in Yeonjun’s deep eyes. 

“Are you not going to say anything? You’re making me more and more nervous, Choi Soobin.” He laughs awkwardly and shifts his gaze to the ground. 

_ I am making him nervous? _

“ _ I  _ am the one who had a hard time figuring out how  _ you  _ felt about  _ me, _ ” he utters. 

Yeonjun opens his mouth slightly, then closes it and scratches the back of his head. 

“We’re tiptoeing around what should be a simple question. If it’s a misunderstanding, we’ll just move on, okay?” He takes a deep breath. 

“Do you like me, Soobin?” 

  
  


Soobin can’t answer right away. He wants to say yes, but it feels like it’s too weak to express his feelings. Lost in thoughts, trying to find the right words, he notices how with each moment that passes Yeonjun looks more and more somber. 

The sight pains him more than anything.

He nods. 

“I do.” 

Yeonjun looks like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.

He sighs and smiles. “It’s mutual, then.” 

  
  


They stop talking.

A moment like this, it has Soobin unprepared, and he doesn’t know what to do or think next; his mind is all over the place. 

_ It’s mutual  _ means that he likes Soobin too. He wants to  _ be  _ with him, maybe he thought of holding Soobin close, imagined how it would be like to  _ date _ , like Soobin did, and now- it might just become real. 

It’s all over the place.

Yeonjun giggles. “I can’t kiss you if you’re standing that far.” 

He’s brought back to reality. 

“Oh,” Soobin exhales, realizing that they’re both under their own umbrellas. He closes his and steps under Yeonjun’s, but hesitates. 

“Hyung.. what if someone sees us?” 

He doesn’t respond, just lowers the umbrella so that it blocks their faces from any unwanted attention. 

He looks Soobin in the eyes for the last time.

When he feels Yeonjun’s lips on his, it’s like he’s in another world. It’s like there’s smoke in his skull and cotton candy in his stomach. It’s like he’s dreaming.

He feels the soft touch of Yeonjun’s lips. It’s ticklish at first, like Yeonjun is just testing the waters and trying to see how Soobin will react. 

He doesn’t know what to do, so he just lets Yeonjun kiss his bottom lip, and only after does he open his mouth slightly, willing to experiment. 

Yeonjun is thankfully taking the lead. He kisses like he knows exactly what to do at what time.

It’s almost painful when he pulls away. 

Soobin buries his head in Yeonjun’s neck. The fact that he’s taller is a slight inconvenience, but he’s willing to look past it. 

He feels Yeonjun’s hand taking his and brushing his thumb over Soobin’s knuckles. “Hopefully no one saw us,” he teases. 

Soobin pulls away and punches Yeonjun’s shoulder. “Stop making me nervous more than I already am.” 

He laughs and points at Soobin’s umbrella. “Don’t worry, just act like we’re just friends and no one will suspect a thing.” 

Soobin understands and steps away, opening up his umbrella. 

‘Act like we’re just friends.’ 

The implications of the sentence make Soobin’s mind go crazy. 

Acting like they’re just friends..

Would mean that they are not  _ just that anymore. _

He wonders at what point Yeonjun’s feelings for him grew- whether it was during the trip, or before, but he doesn’t ask. After all, not even he knows that about himself. 

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. 

“No one will suspect a thing,” he repeats Yeonjun’s words. 

He smiles wide. 

  
  


“That you and me are more than just friends.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have reached the last proper chapter! hope you enjoyed :) I consider the next chaper more like an epilogue- it's really short and not much happens in it, but I wanted to cover that part (nsfw) of yeonbin's relationship in this fic too. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you in my next fics, if I ever write any :P


	5. Chapter Five/epilogue/idk

The entire time on the plane back home was hell, when they agreed to keep their hands to themselves in public. Similarly, when meeting the other members, they acted like they did before they left on the trip. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to tell the members about their relationship, they just concluded that they’d find a proper time and place to tell them, rather than blurting it out right as they come back. 

It weighed Soobin’s heart. As much as he liked sneaking into Yeonjun’s room for midnight cuddles and Yeonjun stealing kisses from him while they were alone in the practice room, each time he felt guilty for keeping secrets from his brothers. 

It took exactly a week from their arrival to encourage each other and finally call the members to the lounge of the BigHit building. 

Soobin asked Yeonjun to be the one to say it. But despite being The confident Choi Yeonjun, even he seemed nervous. 

When the confession was off their chests, only Huenigkai really looked surprised. Beomgyu and Taehyun shared a silent eye contact before smiling and congratulating them. 

It wasn’t until the next day that the pair was told that Beomgyu and Taehyun had already figured it out by themselves. Soobin appreciated them being supportive and acting like it was news to them- when you come out to your friends, ‘yeah we knew’ isn’t exactly what you want or need to hear. 

Hueningkai apparently didn’t know, but he might just be a very good liar. 

  
  
  
  


“I’m going home for the weekend.” 

Yeonjun is looking into his yellow notebook. He’s working on something new, though. There’s no saying if their song is finished, but Soobin doesn’t ask, as his mind is occupied by his own work he’s doing on his laptop. 

“Both days?” He asks, without letting his eyes leave the screen.

“Yes,” Yeonjun answers. “But.. my parents are leaving on Saturday evening.” 

Soobin furrows his brows in confusion. “Then what will you be doing there on Sunday?” 

“I was going to ask if you’d like to go with me.” 

He doesn’t respond or even think about his answer, as he’s finishing typing a sentence on his keyboard. A short while passes, until he finally gets what Yeonjun is asking- whether he’d like to spend a day with him alone at Yeonjun’s place. 

His cheeks light on fire when the realization dawns on him. 

  
  


It should be expected. They have been dating for some time now, and there  _ have  _ been times when they got a little too playful or close, only to stop themselves, because their work or the dorms just don’t provide enough privacy. 

There hasn’t, however, been an occasion when the two just downright  _ talked _ about wanting or planning to have sex. 

“I- uh.. whether I want to go..?-” he gets stuck on his words from being flustered. He feels Yeonjun’s gaze on him, so he turns to face him- and indeed, Yeonjun is giving him a soft smile.

“Hey. It’s okay if you don’t.”

Soobin’s heart suddenly beats faster than he’d like to admit. “No! I’d.. love to go..” he says quietly, shyness overtaking him whole. 

Yeonjun’s eyes sparkle. 

Soobin can’t get enough of the tender smile he only has for  _ him. _

  
  
  


“So, what exactly do you need me for?” 

Soobin buries his head in his hands, trying to hide the embarrassment. It’s afternoon, and the dorms are empty, aside from Soobin and his roommate he called for a reason he’s not even sure he knows. 

“I don’t know, Gyu, just- tell me what to do.” 

“Well, you go with Yeonjun hyung, greet his parents, you’ll probably have a family dinner or something before they leave.”

“I know that,” Soobin interrupts him. “You know what I’m referring to.” 

“And if I don’t?” A smirk appears on Beomgyu’s lips. 

“..Don’t make me say it.” He stands up and walks towards the closet. “What should I wear?”

“For the dinner or for those five minutes of the night before hyung takes it off of you?” 

Soobin turns around and gives him a horrified look. “Oh my god, I shouldn’t have asked for your help.” 

Gyu laughs and stands up, waving his hands. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” He stands next to Soobin and starts going through his clothes. “Hmm.. I don’t really know what the best option would be. But I called Taehyun, he should be there any minute to help you out.” 

“Are you insane?!” Soobin runs his hand through his hair. “I try to be as discreet as possible and you go around telling people that me and Yeonjun hyung are leaving to sleep together.” He tries to sound mad but seeing him that embarrassed makes Beomgyu giggle. 

“Hyung, it’s normal in a relationship, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” 

They hear a quiet knock on the door. 

Taehyun walks in, nodding as a greeting. “I’m here.” 

“Great, come here and help us with the wardrobe, Soobin hyung is desperate.” 

“God, this is so dumb. I should have just kept quiet.” 

“Chill,” Taehyun says with a calm smile on his lips, “I was just with Yeonjun hyung. We were talking about the same thing with him too.” 

Surprised, Soobin can’t find proper words. “You were with him? Does he know you came here afterwards?”

“No,” Taehyun responds, “but if you think I’m going to be your spy and tell you what exactly we talked about, you’re wrong.” 

Soobin feels a bit disappointed, but also proud that he’s keeping their conversation private, like Yeonjun probably wanted. 

He nods. 

  
  


“Okay, so what was the issue? What you’re gonna wear?” Taehyun says louder and walks over to where the other two are standing.

“Not only that,” Soobin admits. “I just.. I’m nervous, that’s all.” 

“Firstly, take it easy. Yeonjun hyung will like anything you decide to wear anyway.” 

“Yeah,” Beomgyu agrees. “Unless there’s something you know he would absolutely kill to see you in, I think you’re good with anything.” 

Soobin suddenly remembers a little something that would fit Beomgyu’s description. He takes a hanger from the depths of the closet and looks at the shirt hanging on it. 

_ ‘You will probably see me wearing it at some point.’ _

The brown see-through shirt he bought in England, the one that he tried on but didn’t show himself in to Yeonjun, which left him disappointed. 

“Isn’t it a bit too much?”

“Hyung.. where did you buy it? It’s sexy,” Beomgyu says, making Soobin blush. 

“It’s not too much,” Taehyun answers Soobin’s question, “if you put a sweater on it for the dinner and then take it off after hyung’s parents leave.” 

“Why did I not keep this to myself,” Soobin asks himself and covers his eyes with his free hand. Beomgyu puts his arm around his shoulder. 

“I agree with Taehyunie.” 

“Good.” Taehyun puts his hands on his hips. “Pair it with some jeans and your outfit is done. What else?” 

Truthfully, choosing the outfit was the easiest task; what Soobin actually needed was moral support. 

He never knew a night spent with his friend would stress him out that much.

He sighs and throws himself on his bed. Beomgyu takes a seat next to him. 

“So his parents leave,” he starts, still covering his eyes and his blushing cheeks with his arm. “And what then?” 

“Maybe you’ll watch a romantic movie or something. To create the atmosphere.” 

“Or he plays some music. I’m sure he has a good playlist for such occasion.” 

Soobin snorts at Beomgyu calling it an occasion. But he has a point. 

“And then he just.. takes you to his room, I guess?” 

“Okay,” he interrupts him, “let’s stop there and not talk about it again. Ever.” 

Both Taehyun and Beomgyu laugh. It’s obvious that Soobin takes everything a lot more seriously than the two of them, but he’s not mad- rather appreciative, without them he’d lose his mind for good. 

  
  
  


On the big day, he wakes up an hour earlier than usual. 

He tries to force himself back to sleep, but with no results, so he just decides to take a long shower instead. 

He styles his hair to have a small split of bangs in the middle of his forehead and excitedly gets dressed in the clothes him and his friends chose over four days ago. He checks himself out in the mirror and stops when looking at the shirt. The curves of his torso are well visible, but he feels like taking it one step naughtier. 

He finds a black belt and ties it around the thinnest part of his waist. 

Luckily, the belt is not visible with the black knitted sweater he will be wearing for the entire day on. 

“You look cute,” he’s told by Yeonjun when they meet while eating breakfast. Aside from them, there’s no one there yet, and Soobin feels safer quickly checking his boyfriend out. He’s wearing a black turtleneck tucked in black jeans- the only colour to his outfit is the bright yellow stone of his necklace he’s worn ever since Soobin gave it to him. 

It makes him happy every time he sees it. 

  
  
  


The fact that his parents already know about their relationship saves them a lot of uneasy explaining, but frankly, this weekend Soobin would prefer if they didn’t know. That way they wouldn’t have figured that the family dinner isn’t the main purpose of Soobin’s visit. 

They’re not the kind to ask too much, thankfully. The family evening goes well, and Yeonjun’s parents leave before eight. When Yeonjun closes the door behind them and turns to look at Soobin, the atmosphere suddenly feels heavy.

Heavy in excitement. 

Yeonjun reaches out and pulls Soobin closer. He closes his eyes, expecting a kiss, but to his surprise there’s no pressure to his lips- only a quiet romantic swinging side to side as Yeonjun tightly wraps his arms around him. They stay like that for a few seconds, silent, until Soobin gathers enough confidence to tease him. 

“Are we going to stand at the entrance door the entire night or will you actually take me to your room?” 

Yeonjun looks at Soobin and laughs at the sight of his smirk. “Didn’t know you were so impatient.” 

  
  


“I need to go to the bathroom, feel free to play whatever you want on Netflix.” 

Soobin goes to his room alone. He knows where to go- he’s been to his place multiple times; as expected, Yeonjun, being his usual self, liking his room neat and organised, always keeps the remote control in the same place. 

Soobin takes it and plays the first romantic movie that pops up, not really caring what it’s about one bit. 

When Yeonjun comes from the bathroom, and sees Soobin sitting on the bed in his see-through shirt for the first time, looking both innocent and ready to throw all bits of his innocence away, red colours his entire face. 

He sits next to him and shyly checks him out. “Binie, you look..”

“I told you you’d see me wear it. Looking back, I bought it with that intention. I just didn’t know it yet. I’m glad to see that you like it.” 

Yeonjun deeply inhales. “You’re making it very difficult for me. I wanted our first to be all slow and nice, and then you go and put on the hottest goddamn piece of clothing you have.” 

Soobin laughs. “Take it off if it’s bothering you that much.” 

  
  


Yeonjun puts his hand on Soobin’s neck and brings him closer. Their lips meet, and Soobin lets his mouth be explored; he opens it, letting Yeonjun’s tongue slide in. He tastes like strawberries, Soobin finds. 

His other hand pulls Soobin closer by his waist. Soobin huffs, feeling the sudden pressure against his back, and obediently seats himself on Yeonjun’s thigh. He links his arms around Yeonjuns neck. They kiss like that for a while, until Soobin moans against Yeonjun’s lips. 

The sound turned both of them on. The more Soobin expresses himself with his voice, the further Yeonjun takes it, moving from Soobin’s lips to his neck. He sloppily kisses under his chin down to his collarbone, leaving wet 사랑해 written with his tongue on the way down. Soobin shivers under Yeonjun’s touch once he realizes what message the older is leaving on his exposed skin. 

He returns up.  _ ‘Binnie,’ _ he purrs into Soobin’s ear, to which the younger starts uncomfortably shifting himself on Yeonjun’s thigh, his hard on starting to feel a bit painful. It’s embarrassing, how fast the needy discomfort came. He grabs Yeonjun’s hair and moans louder; Yeonjun smirks when he feels Soobin rub himself against his leg. He grabs Soobin’s ass and positions him so that his crotch lines up with his.

“Hyung, god.. th- that feels good.” 

Soobin grabs Yeonjun’s shirt and untucks it, sliding his hand over Yeonjun’s back. 

Yeonjun’s moans are a bit quieter and less frequent than Soobin’s. When he sucks on Soobin’s bottom lip and tongue, and moans, the vibrations of his throat make Soobin mewl Yeonjun’s name. It’s not every day that he hears Soobin call his name without honorifics, but to Yeonjun’s new discovery, there’s something extremely arousing about it.

They make out for good fifteen minutes, completely ignoring the sounds of the TV, and only being immersed in each other. 

Soobin pulls the turtleneck off of Yeonjun, revealing his chest and everything that’s admirable about it. He observes it for a short while and noticed Yeonjun’s abs- sometimes it’s more visible, sometimes less; now his abs are very much there and either it’s the universe rewarding him or Yeonjun has been working out more than usual to look good for his boyfriend this evening, Soobin is inclined to believe the latter. 

He grabs his bicep and cries out. “Hyung.. I can’t any longer, please-” 

Yeonjun kisses his sweaty forehead and presses him down onto the bed. 

  
  


Soobin’s skinny jeans suddenly felt especially skinny. 

He’s shy- Yeonjun has never seen him naked before. Yet, despite thinking he’d feel nervous taking his clothes off in front of him, he feels the urge to pull his pants down- or Yeonjun pulling them down, for that matter- foreign to him. He’s surprised at himself for every action he’s done so far this evening, and there’s no justification- it’s all because of Yeonjun, and how he’s completely, utterly driving Soobin crazy. 

  
  


Yeonjun unzips Soobin’s jeans with his teeth. He pulls them down, revealing Soobin’s long legs and his painfully visible boner through his boxers. 

Yeonjun delicately kisses his dick once, before taking Soobin’s underwear off, and once after, making the younger quiver. 

He caresses his inner thigh and twirls his tongue around Soobin’s tip, and not long after feels Soobin’s pre-cum leak down his dick and Yeonjun’s chin. 

“Soobinie..” he says in a low tone, “I’ll start, okay? Tell me if you feel pain or if you want to stop.” 

Soobin closes his almost teary eyes and nods. He looks for Yeonjun’s hand, and holds it tight, the other hand pulling Yeonjun closer. The older plants a soft kiss on Soobin’s lips before pressing the fist finger into him. 

Soobin whimpers and squeezes Yeonjun’s hand tighter. He puts his free arm around Yeonjun’s neck and plays with his hair as a distraction from the uncomfortable pain of Yeonjun opening him up. His hair is not enough when he feels the second finger- his nails dig into Yeonjun’s back, and finally, at the third finger, the pleasure starts to overtake the pain. If anything, Soobin wants Yeonjun to pull his fingers out, so that they can be replaced with the actual desired part of Yeonjun’s body. 

Yeonjun reaches out to the drawer in his bedside table and takes out a bottle of lube and condoms. He must have put them there earlier, Soobin thinks. As always, the oldest is never unprepared. 

He squeezes out a proper amount and massages it in his hands to warm it up. Soobin watches him in awe, impressed at how the older knows exactly what to do, and impatient to finally get the tools to their use. 

When fully prepared to go in, Yeonjun gives Soobin the last tender smile and a kiss on his temple. 

“Again, if it hurts, tell me.” 

Soobin wants to tell him how grateful he is, for how caring Yeonjun has been the entire time, but all that leaves his lips is a weak “okay”. 

  
  
  


When Yeonjun inserts himself in, it feels like Soobin is transported in another world. It’s not only the sensation of skin against skin- it’s the feeling of giving himself fully to Yeonjun and being given back. The intimacy the two share is seeing each other naked literally and metaphorically. Knowing each other's imperfections and loving despite them. Showing their vulnerable side to one other without the fear of judgement. 

Being serious one time but playful the other. 

Knowing exactly when’s the right time for what. 

  
  


Soobin has never felt that with anyone. He’s never loved anyone the way he loves Yeonjun, and no person has ever loved him the way Yeonjun does. 

When the final sensation comes, and the two are left with a mess in the bed and heavy panting in their chests, there’s no sentence that can express nearly what Soobin feels. 

But until he finds his way with words, 

until a better word is invented,

he settles with what he has for now. 

He looks Yeonjun in the eyes and inhales deeply.

  
  


“I love you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I reread it and there should be no mishaps but if you stumbled upon a word in caps in a foreign language that's because I couldn't think of it in english and left it for later sfhsjkh but i'm pretty sure i didn't leave any bye


End file.
